


Deserved to Death

by R00bs_Teacup



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Murder Mystery, Other, Private Investigators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 04:46:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14804633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/pseuds/R00bs_Teacup
Summary: Constance hasn't seen Marguerite in years, but now she's had a call from Marguerite saying her husband's been murdered. Can Constance prove that Marguerite is innocent? She's a private detective, so why not?Porthos would quite like to have a quiet life but his best friend, who also happens to be a publican and happens to keep Porthos's favourite drinks and make him food, is also a private detective and bribes Porthos with grape juice. Now he's got to let Constance come to a post mortem and the shit-storm of a case keeps somehow being his problem.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CanadianGarrison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanadianGarrison/gifts).



> WARNINGS: this is basically a warning to say I haven't put any warnings on here because I am really really tired. What I can remember is dead bodies, violent death, probably exploitation? There's probably more. I will do this properly when I have the brain power. Sorry.

Constance always hangs a camera around her neck and wanders about with a notebook and dictaphone, to get on a crime scene: police hate reporters but don’t clock them as unusual so you can usually hang around at least quite close until someone recognises you and does you a favour or you can sneak closer. Today there’s no chance of that. And no need. Constance strides up to police tape, through the cars, and demands entry. 

“Look, ma’am-”

“I’ve told you, it’s not ‘ma’am’,” Constance says, thrusting her card at the poor frazzled cop again. “You can use ‘sir’ if you insist on that kind of thing.”

“Sir, then, whatever, you can’t-”

“I can and I am going to,” Constance says, smiling. “Mrs Green asked for me. I’m acting on her behalf.”

‘Acting on behalf of’ is a very useful phrase it makes you sound like a lawyer without actually lying. They do act on behalf of people. Just in a private detective way, not a lawyer way. The police officer closes his eyes and when he opens them there’s a desperate edge. Constance widens her smile and her stance and waits. He’s just beginning to droop when Porthos comes around the side of the house, back a bit from the road where Constance is stood waiting, and spots her. Uh oh. He comes ploughing over, brows low, face grim. 

“Sorry sir!” the officer yelps, high pitched, standing to attention and saluting. Constance stifles a laugh. 

“Don’t worry d’Artagnan, I know this one. Congratulations on lasting this long without caving,” Porthos says, clapping the officer, d’Artagnan, on the shoulder. “See if you can get out of the habit of salluting, eh? Bit odd. Constance, this way.”

Porthos lifts the tape and they leave officer d’Artagnan looking forlorn. He’s not in uniform so Constance guesses some low-position detective, he looks too young to be anything higher than constable and besides is out guarding a police line; low tier guy. She follows Porthos (definitely not low tier probably never was probably born top tier policeman) around the side of the house. Porthos directs her to a woman sat on the patio sobbing into a handful of tissues. He does not invite her into the house and when she tries to sneak a look he shoves her toward the woman. Constance sighs but goes on her way. She can do more when Porthos is not here watching her every move. She can be patient. For now she heads for Mrs Green. It is Marguerite, Constance had not been entirely convinced, there had been something odd when Marguerite called, her voice oddly false, and last Constance heard Marguerite was unmarried. But here they are on the scene of her husband’s murder, so that’s changed. 

“Marguerite,” Constance says, drawing her attention. 

“Oh, Constance!” Marguerite cries, staggering to her feet and over, standing tall and straight and constrained, despite the crying, holding Constance’s elbow. 

Constance pulls her into an embrace. Marguerite is one of those huggers who’s all elbows and sharp bits, leaving weird pockets of space between then, arms coming up but not holding on: a hover-hugger. Constance holds her tight anyway and notices that one of the men who had been loitering near her is now coming over, a box of tissues held out, a smile that looks sympathetic in place. Constance doesn’t like that smile. She tucks Marguerite closer and ignores the guy, bending her head a little to hear Marguerite. 

“What happened?” Constance asks. “I got your message and came straight here.”

There hadn’t been much information: Marguerite’s husband was dead; Marguerite got home from a shopping trip in town to a police scene, he’d been found by a neighbour popping over to ask about borrowing a lawn mower; the police were asking pushy questions; Marguerite was scared. Other than that, it had not been coherent. Something about her husband’s mother, something about a nurse. 

“He’s dead,” Marguerite says, dully, tears fading away. She stands in the circle of Constance’s arms trembling, not trying to step away but not really hugging anymore, just standing passively. 

“Did you call me as a friend?” Constance asks, ready and willing to be that. 

“I thought you worked for that private detective, the one on the TV last month,” Marguerite says. “It said he solved that case with the body parts that were found in hedgerows.”

“Yes. Athos de la Fère, he’s my business partner,” Constance says. “We are a private investigation company. Do you want us to find who killed your husband? The police will do that, surely?”

“Make sure they don’t think it’s me,” Marguerite says. She’s whispering so quietly Constance can barely hear. “I didn’t do it. Please.”

“I’ll help you,” Constance says. “What-”

“Marguerite, I think a cup of tea might be a good idea, and I’ve spoken to the detective, he says you can lie down. I’ll call your doctor so you can get some sleeping pills,” comes a smooth, unctuous voice. Constance looks up and sees Tissue-Box looking at Marguerite with carefully projected compassion all over his face. Constance really has taken right against him. Marguerite straightens and turns to him, though, clearly she knows him. 

“Oh, ok. Constance, this is John Cane, he’s my mother-in-law’s nurse,” Marguerite says as he takes her elbow and starts steering her toward the side of the house to take her away. 

“I think you might use ‘friend’ by now,” Cane says, smiling. “I’ve know you and Michael for long enough.”

“Yes,” Marguerite agrees, letting herself be led away. 

Constance turns toward the house, scanning for signs of Porthos. Not seeing him, she lets herself fall back, inching in among the rest of the people coming and going, re-settling her clothes so she blends with the detectives - neat jacket, black jeans, hair up. She steps into the house without challenge and heads down the hall. Porthos comes out of a door on the left and rolls his eyes, catching her and steering her back out of the house again. 

“Where’s the grieving widow?” he asks. 

“Gone, some family friend took her away, said he okayed it with you guys,” Constance says. 

“Fuck’s sake. Marcheaux?” Porthos roars the name and someone comes sauntering out, standing in the doorway, eyebrows raised. 

“What is it Vallon?”

“Why’d you let her go?” Porthos says, pushing his glasses up to squeeze the bridge of his nose. “I found your murder weapon, it was stuffed down the back of the radiator. Don’t you want to ask her what her kitchen knife was doing, stabbing her husband?”

“She’s weak as a kitten,” Marcheaux says, irritable. 

“I had trouble dragging her out of there when my team arrived,” Porthos says. “I had trouble. You’ve sparred with me. The three seconds you lasted anyway.”

“Fine, maybe she’s got some strength, but she still didn’t do it,” Marcheaux says. 

“So what, he stabbed himself?”

“Neighbour found the body, neighbour did it,” Marcheaux says. “I’m busy, Vallon, do your job and piss off.”

Marcheaux disappears back into the house and Porthos growls low in his throat and turns away in disgust. 

“Nothing I can do about him,” Porthos says. “Fucker. He’s in good with the high ups. Neighbour’s from a Muslim family, he’s a teenager, nineteen. He’s a good kid, he didn’t do this.”

“Nor did Marguerite,” Constance says. Porthos glares at her and she raises her hands. “I’m sure the other guy didn’t, either.”

“Upper class white lady’d have it easier. She can afford a lawyer at least. And her own private detective,” Porthos mutters, sticking his hands in his pockets. 

“I’ll act on his behalf as well if you let me in,” Constance wheedles. She gets a dark look. “I’d do it anyway, it’d be a million times easier if you gave a bit and shifted that stick that’s got up your bum.”

Porthos huffs a laugh and sweeps her with a look before jerking his head and stomping back into the house. She follows, thrilled to be allowed on the crime scene. She’s done this before and knows Porthos’s rules: stay back, stay quiet, if she’s challenged she says she’s with him but leaves. He takes her into a livingroom and she stops way back by the door anyway, startled by the amount of blood. She and Athos have done murders, in the past, but not that many. It’s not exactly common and not of this sort. There’s blood on the furniture; the white sofa, the big faux leather half-chair-half-sofa, the TV. It’s spattered across the walls and radiator. It’s darkened the carpet under the body. The body looks like it’s melting into the carpet, into the pool of blood - his skin is shredded, what’s left is bruised and broken. 

“Jesus,” she whispers. 

“Yeah,” Porthos says, grim, standing at her side. One of his techs comes over then looking pale, she recognises him as Brujon. 

“I’ve got pics of everything sir, are we going to analyse spatter patterns?” Brujon asks. 

“Bullshit science,” Porthos mutters. “No, Bruj, no bullshit science on this one; it’s Marcheaux he’ll use anything we give him. No hair follicle tests, no fingerprints, no nothing.”

“Sir?”

“Collect it and catalogue it,” Porthos says. “Leave it for me, don’t you or Clairmont touch it, and don’t send it upstairs. And don’t go doing tests for things that don’t even mean shit. You got enough?”

Constance realises the last is for her and she nods. Porthos leaves her there and moves through the room giving instructions, standing for a moment as four men scoop the body into a bag and onto a trolley, wheeling it out. Brujon follows with his bags and cases and camera, and another tech with a bunch more equipment. Porthos picks his way back to Constance and they also exit, silent as they head around the house, returning to the officer from before. Officer d’Artagnan. 

“We’re done,” Porthos says, coming to a stop shoulder to shoulder with d’Artagnan. “Tell your boss. Autopsy will be tomorrow, it’ll be you?”

“Yeah he never does any of the follow up, just the crime scene and then to jump in at the end,” d’Artagnan says. “If there’s an end.”

“I’ve got another autopsy set for tomorrow so ten thirty,” Porthos says. “Follow up on the mother?”

“Will do, you need medical records on the vic?” d’Artagnan says. 

“The wife gave us access, pick them up for me would you? They’ll email but go for a physical copy, see you can grab the GP, if he’s known with nurses or receptionists. You know the drill. I’m stopping by Athos’s then back to the office,” Porthos says. 

“Leave me the GP address. Not like Marcheaux’ll be giving me anything to do that isn’t a uniform’s job. Fucker,” d’Artagnan says. 

Porthos nods and they move on, back down the street to Constance’s bike. They’re in a nicer bit of town up here and it’s a bit of a way back to the pub. Porthos takes her keys and makes her ride pillion, which is annoying because he drives the bike like a granny, but nice because she’s a little shaken by that room and this way she can hold onto Porthos’s big body and press into his wide shoulder and feel safe. He parks around the back in the alley and they go in through the kitchen. 

**  
d’Artagnan watches Porthos go and sighs. Porthos is nice, Porthos is ranked higher than d’Artagnan so can give d’Artagnan orders. Now, with him gone, d’Artagnan is left with Marcheaux to give him orders. Which means he’ll be stuck out here. Unless… d’Artagnan checks his watch - half past four. He grins and goes to explain to his DCI that the CME asked him to go by a GPs office, which closes at five, what a shame, what a pain. Marcheaux gives him a glare and stamps about but doesn’t really care, he doesn’t much like d’Artagnan. It’s mutual. d’Artagnan is let go and he hurries off before Marcheaux can take it back. He really does head for the GPs office, plausible deniability and all that. He stops by the neighbour’s house on the way, though. Sergeant Hubert is family liaison, ostensibly for Mrs Green but Mrs Green doesn’t want her so she’s decided to sit in on interviews with anyone she considers vulnerable and she’s there, opens the door to d’Artagnan and makes them tea and sits quietly while d’Artagnan asks his questions. 

“Why did you go around the back at all?” d’Artagnan asks a terrified teenager, sat on the sofa with a cup of tea, the teenager’s mother sat beside him also looking terrified. “You say you rang the bell and nothing, why didn’t you go back another time?”

“Mr Green said I could just pop around,” Mujtaba whispers. “I know where the lawn mower is, I do their lawns. They’re not always there, he goes on business trips and they have another house or something. It’s ok for me to go around back and get the lawn mower, Mr Green says. Said. I don’t have proof or anything though, he maybe texted about it once I can look.”

“No need,” d’Artagnan says, as gently as he can. “You do odd jobs around the neighbourhood?”

“Yes,” Mujtaba says. 

“He wanted more pocket money,” the mother, Sarah, says. “His father and I agreed to match what he earnt, last summer. He’s really good though and with his clients reviewing him and passing his name on, this summer it’s a proper job, we can’t match it anymore. He’s done really well at it. He did some classes so he can do more of the fixing, DIY things…”

She trails off and reaches out to stroke her son’s head, pulling him against her. d’Artagnan closes his notebook. He can’t be a hundred percent certain, you never can be with this kind of thing, but he’s inclined to go with Porthos’s gut - this kid didn’t do that. d’Artagnan can still see the room like it’s superimposed on his eyelids. Sergeant Hubert gives him a look and he nods. Time to wrap things up.

“Ok,” d’Artagnan says. “I’m going to leave you information on victim support, please do use them, they’re very good. Oh, could you just let me know, so I have everything written down, where you were before you went around to the house?”

“I was working for Mrs Jenkins, she lives a bit further down. She’s eighty, I do her garden,” Mujtaba says, taking the pack d’Artagnan hands him. “I’m not a victim, detective constable.”

“Perhaps you’re not the most direct victim of this crime but seeing that scene is going to be difficult to deal with. Hell, I’m going to have trouble, I’ll probably see my therapist about it. Besides which, this isn’t going to be going away, we’ll probably have a lot of questions for you,” d’Artagnan says. Mujtaba nods and holds the information pack against his chest. 

That’s it. d’Artagnan makes sure to let Chief Inspector Samara Allama know that he’s done the interview, as she’s co-ordinating the uniforms’ sweep. She tells him that her ‘doofus PC McDooferson’ has missed a house so if he feels like it, it’d make him a wonderful human being and helping her out so she can get home to her kid BEFORE bedtime for once. He goes and knocks on number 108. Samara is a good CI, she was his line manager for a bit when he was in uniform, he probably owes her a couple of favours, and her kid is awesome. Last month the kid made ‘Black Lives Matter’ cupcakes and came to the station to give them out to all the officers, and last time d’Artagnan talked to Samara she’d been boasting about her making a din in a history class that taught British exploration and empire without mentioning slavery, colonisation, slaughter of indigenous populations, etc. Plus she’s friends with Porthos and it’s always good to be on the CME’s good side. Porthos also brings in baked goods. d’Artagnan likes to be fed. He’s thinking happily about the possibility of Porthos making those mini carrot cakes when the door opens and a big guy glares at d’Artagnan.

“Uh,” d’Artagnan says, standing up straight. “Raul… Mendoza?” 

“Si,” Mendoza growls. He takes a step closer to d’Artagnan. d’Artagnan was in uniform for years, he’s worked the worst kinds of drunk crowds at letting-out, the worst of Friday nights, he’s worked riots. He’s worked EDM fucking wankers gatherings. He smiles and pulls out his badge, projecting calm authority. 

“Sergeant d’Artagnan with the Metropolitan police, we’re canvassing the area. I have a few questions.”

“No,” Mendoza says, pushing the door shut. d’Artagnan already has his foot in the way, smile in place, badge still held out. He waits, smiling, patient. Mendoza looks like he’s going to hit him. That’d be fun, d’Artagnan could pull him in, then. Nice. Before Mendoza can do anything a feminine voice comes from further into the house. 

“Raul, don’t be a dick, just answer the fucker’s questions so he’ll leave us in peace.” 

Mendoza reluctantly lets go of the door. Thankfully, as d’Artagnan’s foot was beginning to hurt, clunky police shoes or no. d’Artagnan broadens his smile and relaxes his stance a tiny bit. 

“Well?” Mendoza says. 

“Did you see anything between two and three this afternoon?”

“No, I was fucking Milady.”

“Wonderful. Did you hear anything?”

“No.”

“Do you know the Greens, your neighbours two houses down?”

“No.”

“You know Mrs Green,” the inside-voice says, coming closer. 

One of the most beautiful women d’Artagnan has ever seen comes down the hall. She’s in shadow, behind Mendoza and he only has a glimpse but it’s enough. She walks with allure. She smiles with allure. She invites him in with an alluring lean, a widening of her smile. d’Artagnan shakes it off and manages to run through the questions. They know nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing. They only know Mrs Green to say hello to. d’Artagnan wraps things up and goes on his way. 

He heads back to the office after that, doing a thorough background on Mujtaba and writing up his report, entering it into HOLMES (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, and technically HOLMES 2), the database they use. He’s amused to see that this case has been titled ‘operation basalt’, picked out of a big book somewhere for no reason at all. He does background on Raul Mendoza to finish the TIE (Trace, Interview, Eliminate) and has a quick look for ‘Milady’, starting a mostly-empty node for her. Marcheaux has, unexpectedly, assigned him an action: to go to the GPs office. Right. Not Marcheaux, Porthos, who actually bothers with doing his job. d’Artagnan finishes up with Mujtaba and heads to the doctors’, which actually closes at six. 

**

Porthos pauses a moment just inside the pub and smells his shirt, frowning, then his hands, then looks himself over before walking in properly and heading to the bar, hoisting his big frame onto the small bar-stool and setting his elbow firmly on the counter, resting his head on the prop making his cheek push up and dislodge his glasses so they sit skewed. He waits patiently, letting the day settle on his shoulders and weight him down, letting it sink into and through him.

“Do I smell? I can still smell it,” Porthos says, as Athos, the pub’s owner as well as private detective, comes wandering over (after having served every single other person), a bottle of scotch in one hand a glass in the other. “I’m not drinking that.”

“Michael Green, mid-sixties,” Athos says, holding the scotch up and pointedly putting it back in its place, right by where Porthos is sitting, and pulling out a carton of grape-juice that had been in the pocket of his apron. He sets down the glass and fills it with juice, pushing it across to Porthos. 

“Everyone else gets watered first, eh?” Porthos grumbles, taking the juice. “Constance already got me about Green, turned up on the scene.”

“Everyone else pays me, and drinks stuff that you ought to drink in a pub. You don’t smell like whatever it is you think you smell like,” Athos says, leaning over the bar to check for Porthos, sniffing him. His lips quirk a little bit as he stands straight again. “You smell like Lynx and something fancy.”

“Cologne,” Porthos says. “You gonna fill this glass up properly, stingy?”

“Yeah, no,” Athos says. “This shit’s expensive and no one else drinks it, I don’t even stock it.”

“I let Constance onto the crime scene,” Porthos says. Athos tops him up. 

Constance Bonacieux is Athos’s second in command at the private investigators’ he half-heartedly runs from the office above the bar. Athos had hired Constance sit at the bar in the day time when only cops came in to drink, while he did his detective work upstairs. Then at the end of the first week she’d handed over three folders of information she’d got from the police drinking here, broken his case of the time, saved him from a weeping client (over a cat he couldn’t find, he’s pretty sure it just went to live with the neighbour), and sorted the pub’s books. She’d refused to keep doing any of that unless he hired her as investigator and so now they share cases, she gets 50% of any takings, and she owns most of the pub thanks to the period of time Athos tried to drown his sorrows for about 14 months and needed a bail-out. Athos is still unsure if she saved him or conned him. Porthos asserts that it’s probably both, which is probably accurate. 

“The wife did it,” Porthos says. 

“You’re the ME, I’m the detective,” Athos says. “And this is why.”

“CME. She did,” Porthos says. “I’m a good judge of these things.”

“You never, ever get it right,” Athos says. Porthos finishes the juice and covers his glass before Athos can refill it, giving him a sheepish look. Athos gets the scotch back out. 

“Are you drinking on an empty stomach?” Athos asks.

“Yeah, I’m drinking on an empty-ish stomach and on duty, so feel free to be stingy,” Porthos says. 

Athos vanishes for ten minutes and returns with grilled cheese and soup, carrying everything down on a tray from upstairs where he lives. Porthos might get served last, but he gets food. He feels better as he eats, and Athos leaning close the other side of the bar, pensive and quite, helps the feeling of warm well-being spread. 

“Why do you say the wife did it?” Athos says. 

“When did she even have a chance to call you? She’s probably having an affair with Mr Cane, her kitchen knife did the deed, was definitely a passionate murder,” Porthos ticks off, around a mouthful of hot cheese, good tomato, and spinach. Athos makes good grilled cheese. “Mm. Thanks. And I just got that vibe. Last but not least, it’s always the wife.”

“She called after the police got there, you scared her she thought you were arresting her,” Athos says. “Constance knows her from somewhere.”

“Constance knows everyone. Your client list has tripled since her waifs and strays started coming to you for help,” Porthos says. “You owe her.”

“So do you,” Athos says, lightly. 

“Fine, she can come to the autopsy as an observer,” Porthos says. He’s not going to fight that one, it’s not a high profile case no one’s going to care if he brings an observer in on this. Plus if he’s co-operative his future might be full of home-cooked food care of Athos as Athos and Constance pry case information out of him. He eats the last bite of his grilled cheese and smiles. 

“Any other options? Besides the wife did it,” Athos says. 

“Mm,” Porthos says, finishing up his scotch. “From what I gather there’s a possibility of a B&E gone wrong, wouldn’t count on that one from the look of the body - this looks personal. Guy who discovered the body, that was a neighbour though and I’m reluctant, he’s nineteen and comes to my youth thing on Fridays. Back door was open but not forced.”

“It could have been anyone,” Athos says. “If the door was open.”

“Could have, could have,” Porthos agrees. “The IO will be looking at camera footage from the area and we’re conducting a door-to-door. Vic was working from home after a business trip, probably died about 3pm, I doubt anyone saw much at that time. My money’s on the wife.”

“Really, I’d never have guessed,” Athos says. “Juice or scotch?”

“Juice,” Porthos says. “We done with Michael?”

“Mm hm,” Athos says, swapping Porthos’s glass out. “Why the scotch?”

“Long day,” Porthos says, “whoever did do this? It was definitely personal, there is only so much hate a person can have for someone they don’t know. In order to all-but flay someone, you gotta really hate them.”

“Thus the scotch,” Athos says, sympathetically. 

“Thus,” Porthos agrees, waving a hand. 

Athos is a good listener, in his way. He lets Porthos talk, makes a pithy remark, and moves on. Porthos appreciates the lack of emotion in it all. Athos leaves him for a bit to serve his customers and chat up a few uniforms. He’s always good to the police, that’s part of the reason they come in here. He’s good to them, butters them up, lets them run up tabs they forget to pay off. They throw him enough each month to keep him in good business but hardly cover what they owe. In return, he’s a familiar friendly face and they let things slip, don’t mind giving up tidbits on cases he works, don’t kick him out of the station if he ever goes nosing around. Constance is very good at it too, but she’s a hard ass and makes them pay for what they drink. There’s always a feeling of celebration when they know Athos is going to be on the bar on a Friday night. Speaking of, it isn’t Friday and Porthos has work tomorrow. He leaves a twenty under his glass, waits till Athos sees it and raises a hand a little in goodbye, then leaves and walks the twenty minutes home. 

**


	2. Chapter 2

Two deaths get called in the next morning and Michael Green is an hour late getting on the table. Porthos tells him, cheerfully, that he’s late for his appointment which makes Brujon, assisting, and d’Artagnan, leaning irritatingly close to watch Porthos begin to catalogue, groan. 

“Well, Michael, let’s have a look and see what’s happened to you,” Porthos murmurs, ignoring them. “Late isn’t going to put me out, we’ll do fine you and I. Right, there’s a bruise on his cheek that looks old, maybe a week. A couple millimetres, Brujon?” 

Brujon measures as Porthos directs him, Porthos wiping his hands so he can adjust his glasses, and then they conscientiously go through the routine of noting everything about Michael, every single mark they find on his clothes (or in this case just tatters) and visible skin (also tatters) and then layer by layer what lies beneath. There’s not much to see, really. Michael’s… destroyed is the only word Porthos can really think to use, but they can maybe make out the bone structure of his face, even broken like this, and hints of him under there somewhere.

“Forensic countermeasure?” Brujon asks, frowning. 

“Sure looks like someone was trying to hide something,” Porthos says. “We’ll need to get a formal id, I think, see if we can find any distinguishing marks? Tattoos or even bits of ink.”

Porthos considers bruising on the vic’s hip, a patch of skin mostly still in tact, for a while before identifying it as being done by a ringed hand. He checks the size of the bruise, the angle. There’s nothing else on him, save for the stab wounds. Porthos frowns as they finish with the clothed layers and get down to cataloguing the wounds.

“I think this is probably the cause of death,” Porthos says. “Deep, five centimetres across, right over the heart. We can find out when we get further in but I’m pretty sure. Which is odd because this is precise, controlled, and early. The rest are uneven, see here over the thighs and arms and chest, it’s almost like they’ve just pulled the skin off, not deep at all. Barely more than skin deep.”

Porthos lists them off, their location and dimensions. 

“Ah, Michael, what are you hiding, hmm? This definitely looks like an attempt to remove identifying marks. Brujon, lets see what we can do with the skin around the wounds.”

They move on, opening Michael up. Again, there’s not much to find, just a lot to record and catalogue. d’Artagnan has a lot of questions, which is faintly annoying but doesn’t bother Porthos as much as it should. No many IO’s bother with what he can tell them even though he can tell them a lot if they’re willing to listen. Some of them don’t even bother to read his meticulous reports. He is sure d’Artagnan is going to be scouring every inch of this report. So he answers d’Artagnan patiently and just does his work the best he can, looking after Michael. That’s his job, at the end of the day. To make sure that Michael is treated with respect, given as thorough an investigation on Porthos’s table as possible, and passed back to his family as quickly as possible. 

“Brujon,” Porthos murmurs, as they examine Michael’s heart. “The penetration on that wound isn’t what I expected. What do you think of this?”

“Um,” Brujon says, hesitantly, looking to Porthos for guidance. He wants to be a pathologist, not just a tech; he can work it out for himself. Porthos keeps his face impassive. “Sir, if I was… the penetrating wound is deep enough to have caused considerable damage, here.”

“I just listed that,” Porthos interrupts. 

“Yes sir,” Brujon says, miserably. He takes a deep breath. “I’d say, sir, with my limited judgement, that this wouldn’t kill him, sir. But I’d say that it was still heart damage that… just not from the penetrating wound.”

“Good,” Porthos says, brusquely. “That was my thought too. Your judgement, Brujon, comes with the considerable weight of expertise and experience, let’s not be falsely modest, hmm? The penetrating wound is probably not cause of death, though it was pre-mortem and the others so far have, by our not inconsiderable judgement, looked like post-mortem. We’ll confirm that now.”

It’s not a short autopsy, it’s four hours later before Porthos can turn off his recorder and leave Brujon and Clermont (returned from a reportable death) to close. Michael won’t be going back to his family just yet, not until Porthos has found a reliable COD. The penetrating wound to the heart is possible but Porthos isn’t sure enough to come down one way or another. Not when Michael’s heart had signs of strain and damage. He’s got a lot of work to do, but not right this second. 

**

He washes up and heads upstairs to the CSI offices and labs and goes to loom over whoever is processing his crime scene. He wants to make absolutely sure that they’re not doing fake science that’ll get Mujtaba in trouble. He was going to run most of it himself but people have decided today is the day to die and so he’s had other work. He watches as Fleur checks the knife for fingerprints, then as she takes blood samples off of it. 

“You think whoever did this cut their hand?” Porthos asks, following her.

“Force it takes to shove a knife into someone, often it’ll slip and slice someone open,” Fleur says. 

“Yeah. Pretty sure whoever did this knows a lot about using knives,” Porthos says. 

“Still gotta check,” Fleur says. “What do you want, Vallon?”

“Nothing,” Porthos says. 

Fleur kicks him out and he heads back to his own part of the building. He goes to his office then can’t quite face it all and changes direction. He catches Constance talking to d’Artagnan at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Constance, lunch?” he offers, hoping she’s not going to get right into d’Artagnan’s good books; if that happens maybe it’ll be d’Artagnan getting home-cooked meals from Athos and not Porthos. 

“Oh, Porthos. Hi,” Constance says, adorably flustered and flushing across her cheeks. d’Artagnan’s also pink. Porthos grins. Maybe they weren’t discussing the case at all. “Yes, lunch. Good. Um, I’ll see you Thursday evening, then, sergeant?”

“Yes you will,” d’Artagnan says, grinning widely and then turning abruptly and leaping up the stairs, singing to himself. 

“Ah,” Porthos says. 

“Shut up,” Constance says, dragging him out of the building. 

She drags him the whole five minute walk to the pub, not letting him walk under his own steam, talking a mile a minute not letting him get in edgewise. 

“I’m not gonna tease you for flirting,” Porthos says, over her, and the dragging and non-stop blathering relax as they enter the pub. Porthos grins. “Not yet, anyway. Let’s see how the date goes bef-”

He’s cut off by Constance’s stern look that promises a firm slap if he doesn’t shut the fuck up right now. Porthos holds up his hands in apology and promised obedience and inches around her to the bar, hoiking himself onto a stool and beaming as Athos comes wandering over, a paperback folded in half. Porthos yawns. 

“I think I got blood on my glasses, Athos,” Porthos says, resting his head on his arm and gazing at Athos, waiting for attention. 

“Wear eye protectors,” Athos says, pouring a bottle of sparkling mineral water into a glass one handed, still reading, scooping some ice in and sliding it over, the bottle clunking down beside. 

“What’cha reading?” Porthos asks, taking a sip, the bubbles tingling making him smile. Athos looks up to smile back and unfolds the book, going back to reading. Porthos pulls his glasses out and checks them for blood (none) before reading the title; Timon of Athens. “Shakespeare. Nice.”

“You’re always paranoid about being covered in body stuff,” Athos says. “You never are. Timon here, on the other hand...”

Athos wanders off, returning ten minutes later with toasted cheese and a bar of chocolate. He sits at Porthos’s side and reads quietly while Porthos has lunch.

**

Seeing Porthos looked to by Athos, Constance jogs upstairs to eat a sandwich at her desk. She’s sure it wasn’t their vic’s autopsy that had Porthos refusing to go into his office but she’d seen him veer away and decided he might need a little looking after. Athos’s particular brand of absent-minded grouching always seems to cheer Porthos up. Constance sighs and looks over the case file she and Athos have put together, adding her scribbled notes from the autopsy. d’Artagnan promised to share when (or if) they get any particulars about the ring that made those bruises and Porthos will probably pass on COD and anything about the vic’s heart to Athos. That’s all that done, then, as much as she can for now. She flicks through their notes on Mrs Green but there isn’t much beyond her own brief conversation with her yesterday and the initial phone call, a few bits Athos got from Porthos the only ‘new’ addition. Constance gives Mrs Green a call. She’s careful to not think of her as ‘Marguerite’. For the moment, at least.

“I was wondering if you had time to meet me?” she says. “I just have a few questions.”

“I don’t know,” Mrs Green says. She sounds flustered, as if Constance has interrupted her in something. “Maybe you could come here, I have a family friend… I think you should come here.”

“I can do that,” Constance says. 

“Come at one thirty,” Mrs Green says, gives the address, and hangs up the phone. 

Constance checks the time and curses, hurrying down the back stairs, grabbing her jacket and boots on the way. She parks her bike around the back behind the bins, out of sight of any curious drunkards looking for a spot to smoke. She’s just got time to get to Mrs Green’s if she leaves now and takes a shortcut she knows. She grins as she kicks the bike into life. She ties her hair up and jams her helmet on, careful out of the pub courtyard then opening up. She gets there five minutes late, Mrs Green is waiting in the doorway. The house is detached, a terrace house, uniform. They’re all set back from a road, a quiet side-road, with front gardens. It looks expensive. Mrs Green jerks her head and stalks inside, Constance gaping around the hallway as she follows, snapping her mouth shut in time to not get caught. There is art on the walls. Art art. And it’s not prints. There’s a god damned Edward Hopper if she’s not mistaken, and photographs that she’s sure are by Hoppé. She makes a mental note and carries on through, finding Mrs Green in a dining room. The same man from yesterday, Mr Cane, is stood by the window, arms crossed, taking up space and intimidating. Constance ignores that and sits opposite Mrs Green. This room is less intimidating than the hallway, there’s an upright piano, more art but no one she recognises, a rug that looks worn. The table’s highly polished, Mrs Green’s hands resting in a tight knot there, her back straight, staring ahead over Constance’s shoulder. 

“What do you want to know?” Mrs Green asks, tight and angry. Or, Constance thinks, nervous. Worried. Holding back but perhaps just holding back grief. 

“You and Michael-”

“Mr Green,” Mrs Green says, eyes filling with tears that are quickly held back. “He was old fashioned, he liked formality and manners.”

“You and Mr Green were happy, you loved him, you had a good life together. You don’t know anyone who might do this, neighbour found him,” Constance says, running through what she knows. “You’re worried the police will think you did it, where were you by the way?”

“Shopping,” Mrs Green says. “I was in Waitrose. The police said he probably died between two and three pm, I was looking at tomatoes trying to choose... there were these big ones still on the vine, they smelt like the my father’s garden…”

“Why do you think the police might suspect you?” Constance asks, letting that drift away. Mrs Green blinks and moves her eyes from one point of blank wall to another a little lower.

“It’s always the wife,” Mrs Green says. “And the officer seemed to think it was me, when I was questioned.”

“Detective Inspector Marcheaux?” Constance says and gets a nod, making a note. She does not like DI Marcheaux. “Any other reason? An argument you had that might have been overheard, a thought shared? Perhaps you had some motive, however flimsy?”

“Of course she didn’t,” Cane says, sneering at Constance. She doesn’t much like him either. “You’re being paid to prove she’s innocent, are you going to do your job or continue asking asinine questions?” 

Mrs Green casts a quick look over her shoulder at him, Constance flicks through her notebook for a first name. 

“I am doing my job, John,” Constance says, making it absent-minded, not paying him attention, ignoring his tone and rudeness. “Can you tell me, just so I know, a little more about yourself?”

“I’m a friend of the family,” Cane says. 

“He’s a nurse at my mother-in-law’s care home we know him from there, he’s always been… kind to Michael and I, and Mrs Green,” Marguerite says, haltingly. 

“Where we you, yesterday?” Constance says. 

“Piss off,” Cane says. Marguerite gives him a stern look but he returns to the window.

“Marguerite, we are going to prove you innocent but I need to know what the police are looking at, so we can refute it. Is there a reason the police might suspect you?” Constance says, leaving Mr Cane for the moment.

“No,” Mrs Green says, shortly. 

“Ok. Do you have any pictures of him?” Constance says. 

“Why?” Mr Cane snaps, turning and coming back again. 

“We’re going to be looking closely at your husband’s life, Mrs Green. It would help us find him if we have pictures. Did he have any social media accounts? An email address we can look at?”

“The police already has everything, you might as well too,” Mrs Green says. “He didn’t do any of that. He called himself a businessman, but... he was in his sixties, he’d mostly retired, he doesn’t even have a computer. I used to deal with any social media. He was a businessman mostly in name. Really, he was just… rich. He made money when he was young and… he didn’t … he didn’t want any of this new… he just liked his books, his art. He was a quiet man, Constance.”

“Alright,” Constance reassures. “If you give us whatever you have, we’ll do the rest.”

‘Whatever you have’ turns out to be even less than Mrs Green suggested. There’s an email address, a wedding photograph from fifteen years ago, a more recent photo that is more of Mrs Green than Mr Green - he’s got his back to the photo and is only half in it, she’s pressed to his shoulder, face bright with happiness, eyes closed, lines radiating joy. There’s a diary but it’s an appointments diary. A couple of letters. Mr Green barely left a trace and has no digital footprint. Constance takes what she’s given and asks a few more questions on her way out. 

“You and Mr Green’s mother get on?” Constance asks. 

“Not particularly,” Marguerite says, walking Constance to her bike. Constance puts the things in the box on the back and locks it, putting on her boots and jacket again. “Constance… I had reason. I love my husband but… I had reason.”

And with that she hurries back into the house and shuts the door firmly. Constance catches movement at the livingroom window and sees John Cane watching her. She drives back to the office, worried and irritate in equal measure. I had reason. What kind of cryptic nonsense is that?

**

 

“His heart was fine,” Porthos tells d’Artagnan, resting his butt on his desk. He’s brought his prelim over in person in order to not deal with Brujon and Clairmont for a bit. 

“So COD was the stab wound,” d’Artagnan says, riffling the file and making a mess of Porthos’s nicely ordered report. 

“No,” Porthos says. “His heart was fine according to his medical history. According to the autopsy I just did, his heart was damaged, the kind of damage you get from a small heart attack. Nothing major but there are signs of strain. Cause of death isn’t heart attack either, other signs aren’t present.”

“What killed him, Porthos?” d’Artagnan says, giving up on the file and poking Porthos instead. Porthos huffs.

“He died of death,” Porthos says. “His heart stopped.”

“So he died of heart whatever?.”

“No,” Porthos says. “His heart stopped, it just, stopped, and he died. It’s not a cause of death it’s a symptom. If he had a history of heart trouble that penetrating wound might be enough. But he didn’t have a history of heart trouble, except according to his actual heart he did, so my conclusion is that there was a foreign agent introduced recently that damaged the heart, caused those signed of strain. Or maybe, he didn’t have a history of heart trouble he might have missed a small heart attack, put it down to heartburn or something. But basically fuck knows what caused the heart failure.”

“Cause of death, heart failure?” d’Artagnan asks, finally finding it. 

“Yeah, which is to say, we don’t really know,” Porthos says, shrugging, not very pleased with it. “It just means that his heart stopped. I dunno. Double check the ID, have you got any pics of him?”

“Um, yeah, Constance got two,” d’Artagnan says, scrabbling about his desk. It’s a mess, a chaos of papers and orange peel, old mugs, a lunchbox. Porthos scans the debris and gingerly fishes out a glossy pic by the corner. “That’s it actually, the other is his back.”

Porthos squints and has to put his glasses on. Mr Green is much younger in the photo and it was taken long enough ago to be grainy and rubbish quality. d’Artagnan turns his monitor and shows Porthos the same picture, blown up, then clicks through and shows a reconstruction from it, and then another click to show Porthos a picture with ‘distinguishing features’ marked out, then pulls all three up side by side. 

“Do a facial reconstruction on the body we have downstairs, I’ll see if I can chase down his he dentist but he’s all denture, you’d think that’d help but, generic,” Porthos says. “Right, that’s me done, better get back to the squabbling kids.”

“I was wondering why you were hiding up here,” d’Artagnan says, turning the monitor back and shooing Porthos away. 

Back in his office he boots up his laptop and opens HOLMES, looking through the case. Marcheaux hasn’t been putting in actions but d’Artagnan has been, inputting every neighbourhood canvas, ever TIE (Trace, Interview, Eliminate), every conversation with the family. Porthos can see that Mujtaba has been questioned twice and not eliminated. CSI have uploaded part of their ongoing report, Porthos clicks through and scrolls down, idly, ticking off bullshit science to make sure they follow up and double check before taking this shit to court. He pauses when he sees that Fleur Boudin found two blood-types on the knife. No fingerprints on the handle, one bloody one on the blade that they think is Michael’s. They found a hair that matches a DNA sample given by Mrs Green (‘just so we can eliminate’, Porthos knows the line). 

It doesn’t necessarily mean much, doesn’t add up to much. It’s probably Mrs Green though, and when Porthos clicks back he sees d’Artagnan’s made a note to check Mrs Green’s blood type. Porthos already has access to her medical records (‘for elimination purposes’, hell, he used the line himself). He checks it for d’Artagnan, diligently putting the information into the system. He also adds Mrs Green’s medical records to her node, which Brujon was supposed to do yesterday. Mrs Green’s blood type matches that on the knife. Porthos watches as d’Artagnan creates an action for CSI asking them to check the blood sample against Mrs Green. 

**


	3. Chapter 3

Michael Green looked after his mother. Their wealth came from his father’s side of the family, his mother was a woman he met as an undergraduate at university, the rights activist striding through campus in the nineteen forties in jeans. Blue-jeans, she’d called them, American intonation turning them into something entirely new. She hadn’t had much, coming over here after the war and ‘carrying on’; charging through London getting stuck-in rebuilding, running after her four roommates all of them clamouring for jobs and space in a world closing in tight around them. Michael’s father fell in love and married her and Michael had taken over when his father died, providing her with a house. She’d picked out the art and she was good at investing in it - choosing new artists, people just starting out, giving them a boost, getting rich as they took off. And then when she started to forget, when moving through the house full of beloved and well-lived rooms and pictures and things became unfamiliar, together they’d sat down with Marguerite at the computer and picked out the best assisted living facility, where she still is, frail, very small. Constance sits across from her in the window and listens, head bent to listen. 

“Nancy,” Mrs Green sn. says. “That’s who I lived with. Blake and Ruth and Kathy, but Nancy. She was my love, back then, lying in the park in the aftermath of all those terrible bombs… the lights were too bright? It wasn’t… it doesn’t matter still. We’ll not get caught. The comte won’t find us here, Nancy.”

“No,” Constance agrees, smiling. The sunshine’s coming right in and she can’t help the thrill of recognition even though it’s not her. “What’s Nancy like?”

“Her hair is all clouds,” Mrs Green sn. says. “Such a bright smile. Glasses and freckles! All over your nose and cheeks in the summer, as you get browner out they come! Such a sunrise… no, a starter… A Surprise.”

“But you married Mr. Green?”

“Oh yes, Thomas Green. He was something, wasn’t he? Bursting into our lives demanding we let him pay for everything. You moved on to Canada eventually,” Mrs Green sn. says. “We had some good times, though.”

“Who’s the comte?” Constance asks. She began with all the right questions but she hadn’t got anywhere so now she’s just following the trailing edges of Mrs Green’s story, wherever it leads. 

“Who? You have lovely hair.”

“Yeah, I know, I love it.”

“Good, that’s good. Is it dinner time? Did we miss lunch?”

“We just ate lunch,” Constance says. 

“My pills, I took them already. I didn’t like the woman you married, Michael. She’s rude.”

“Rude?”

“Yes, she’s angry with Michael,” Mrs Green says. “The comte doesn’t like her, she is rude to him. Is it time to go to the party? Nancy has the dress tonight, I don’t mind I’ll wear my blue jeans.”

“You can wear whatever you like, Mrs Green.”

Constance listens for a bit longer, just sits in the afternoon light, examining the aging face before her. There are traces there of a bold woman. The beauty’s not trace; that remains in every line, every time she smiles or talks of Nancy or Thomas or Michael. She has freckles, coming up over paper-thin pale skin that’s withering, crinkling up in cool, beautiful wrinkles that spread all over her, eyes bright even as she loses the thread of where, who, how she is. Her head cocks to one side now and then, eyes flicking over something or someone Constance doesn’t see, hand reaching to touch the arm of her chair, nodding to the side. So much movement. She doesn’t know anything, though, or nothing that she can tell Constance. Eventually Constance tears herself away, holding Mrs Green’s hand for a long time before she goes. It has been an age since she met a queer woman with so much life lived, so much love given, so much. Constance notices John Cane on duty, he doesn’t see her. He slips into Mrs Green’s room, Constance sees from the end of the corridor. She goes to the front desk and gets his alibi from the receptionist - he was on duty that day and was here right up until Marguerite phoned him. 

***

 

Once the pub closes the building cools and quiets fast. Unless it’s Monday when they do a deep clean, or Friday or Saturday when it’s busy, end of day doesn’t take more than half an hour. Everyone wants to be home - they stop serving at midnight as per licensing laws but don’t close until half past at least most nights, it’s definitely time to be in bed. By one am everyone is gone, by half past the street is quiet, the building has settled, and the silence of the morning makes the wood creak like an old man. Athos lies on the floor in the office charting the sounds of the building, ticking the familiar ones off as the come and go. Insomnia, he decides, is entirely to blame for his knowing his building more intimately than he’s ever known another human being.

He runs the pieces of the case he has idly as he lies there and waits to feel sleepy. Porthos say that cause of death was ‘his heart stopped’ but with some uncertainty about why, and some uncertainty about how the heart got to be in the condition he found it. Bruising on the victim suggested the perpetrator wore rings, penetrating wounds are inconsistent but controlled, show knowledge of anatomy but not medical training. Michael Green was a healthy sixty four year old, he’d had a problem with his back a few years back and had been hospitalised once in the last ten years, for a fever. Other than that they know that he owned a successful business that he had little to do with running, that he had no presence on social media (Mrs Green had run a very basic social media presence for him but that was it). His emails showed a conscientious businessman but one who had little interest in engaging with the his business. Requests for mentoring or networking were met with friendliness and a warning that he was mostly retired. He’d met up with two graduates for coffee in the last year. Not a man who leapt out as ‘murder victim in the making’.

Family friend John Cane now… Athos’s thoughts drift as the stairs creak, familiar. He waits for the susurration that usually follows, like the house is sighing, then goes back to contemplating the ceiling and Mr Cane. Porthos doesn’t like Mr Cane. Nor does Constance. Athos trusts both of their judgements so he puts Mr Cane in the ‘suspect’ box. But being a dick doesn’t make you a murderer and he seems to have no motivation. Plus he’s alibi-ed. And Mr Green paid Mr Cane a considerable amount of money to take extra care of the mother; killing him meant less money. The neighbour, but Athos takes Porthos’s word on that and decides they won’t push that angel. Suspects so far are thin on the ground. Save the wife. She had been on the scene too fast, called both him and Mr Cane too fast, been too worried about being arrested. Who’s first thought on entering the crime scene of their murdered spouse is ‘I better make sure no one thinks I did it’? Athos gets up and goes to the desk to take some notes. He’s still sat there (though no longer doing anything other than staring at the wall and hating himself for not being asleep) when the phone rings. 

He answers it without thinking. It’s Mrs Green, Athos winces – he doesn’t really want to be taking the grieving widows calls at all hours. He sits up quickly enough and pays attention as her tone goes from ‘unhappy’ to ‘angry’ to ‘bewildered’. She tells him that she’s been called in ‘for questioning’ but she thinks they’re leading up to arrest her, and Athos sits up straighter still, pulls his jacket on and fumbles the case (all over the desk) back into its file.

“They’re pulling you in in the middle of the night?” Athos asks. There’s a longish silence, in which Athos thinks to check his watch and discovers that it’s seven thirty. “Right. Get a lawyer.”

Athos rings Constance and then finishes gathering his things and rushes to the police station. It’s a twenty minute walk and Constance arrives about the same time as him, a bit rumpled. He raises an eyebrow but gets a fierce look in return so he tucks his little bit of curiosity back inside. 

“I’ve texted d’Artagnan,” Constance says, staring at her phone, blushing. Athos doesn’t ask. The blush recedes. The phone buzzes. “Ok. He can’t tell us anything. Try Porthos.”

Athos holds up his phone to indicate that he’s already asked and it buzzes with a message as he wriggles it causing his grip to slip and the phone to go flying across the entryway where they’re standing, landing at the feet of DI Marcheaux. He picks it up and looks at the message, sneering as he hands it to Athos. 

“That’ll get your little sidekick into a bit of a mess,” Marcheaux says. “There’s a block on this case, he’s going to be in trouble when the Chief Inspector finds out he’s been sharing classified information.”

“I don’t think that means what you think it means,” Porthos says, striding in the front doors to join the party. “It’s not ‘classified’ and the Inspector knows I shared that with Athos, I was in his office when Athos texted. If you meant me by ‘sidekick’.”

“What are you doing here, Vallon?” Marcheaux snaps. 

“My job,” Porthos says, coming to a stop, standing with his legs apart, thumbs hooking into his belt, chin raised. He stares Marcheaux down but Marcheaux is unimpressed. 

“This is my case,” Marcheaux says. “I discovered my lapdog has been sharing information, I put a stop to that. I have to step in, he’s messed up.”

“Should’ve been on it from the start, as investigating officer, done more than wander around my crime scene and then bunk off,” Porthos says. 

“I’m mentoring him,” Marcheaux says. “He’s spreading his wings.”

“You’re making a right mess of those metaphors,” Porthos says. 

“Ah, the intellectual,” Marcheaux says, stepping into Porthos’s space and examining him, sneering a little, unintimidated. Porthos stands still, solid and unprotesting. “What are you doing here? You’re job is up the road. In the morgue. With the dead bodies? No one’s dead here.”

“I could fix that for you, Porthos,” Athos says mildly. Porthos sends him an exasperated look. Around his eyes tiny lines appear, a microexpression, his eyes brightening with it, his lips not-quite-twitching but a shadow of a dimple appearing. Athos gives him a tiny smile. Porthos looks away schooling his face.

“You have evidence,” Porthos says. “You were meant to file it before you interviewed her, you didn’t so it didn’t come to me, so I can’t get it processed. You asked for a rush on it.”

“You came to pick up evidence,” Marcheaux says, disbelieving. 

“Yeah,” Porthos says. Marcheaux shrugs and pulls an evidence bag out of his pocket, containing three rings, and another containing a phone. 

“Off you go, then,” Marcheaux says. 

Porthos takes the bags then stands, immovable, until Marcheaux snorts and heads off, deeper into the building, presumably to question Mrs Green. Porthos relaxes, his face softening, his posture shifting. He turns to them and smiles, shrugging. 

“I don’t much like him,” Constance says, still glaring at the door Marcheaux exited through. Porthos’s smile turns into a big, genuine grin. 

“Yeah, he’s a prick,” Porthos says. “Not a bad copper… lazy though, he should have been more thorough with Mrs Green, she’s all over the murder weapon. I wonder why he’s bothering like this now? His usual MO is leave all the work to his DS and then claim the collar at the end.”

“You still think it’s her?” Athos asks. 

“Yeah, the wife did it. Her blood’s on the knife, she has no solid alibi, and, here, look. Rings that are a probably match to the bruising pattern, and a phone that d’Artagnan says has texts between Michael and another woman, Celine - means and motive too.”

“You’re really here to collect evidence?” Athos asks. 

“Of course not,” Porthos says. “I’m the chief medical examiner I have people to do that and it’s mostly CSI’s job anyway. I was in with Treville, he’s suspicious about Marcheaux’s sudden interest, he wants our favourite DI to think he’s having him watched.”

“By… the medical examiner,” Athos says. 

“By Treville’s friends,” Constance says, rolling her eyes at Athos. That makes more sense, to be fair. 

“Just showing my face,” Porthos says. “And now I’m taking my face off to do my job. The lot of you, honestly, it’s a marvel I ever get anything done between the Chief Inspector, Investigators’ Anonymous, and Brujon and Clairmont bickering like four year olds.”

Porthos heads out still grumbling under his breath. Athos watches him go, smiling a little, enjoying Porthos’s performance. He can be a right grouchy bugger, sometimes. It’s Athos’s favourite thing about him. Or perhaps only one of many favourite things. Athos sighs. At the moment his relationship with Porthos is close: Porthos comes to the pub, Athos has things specifically for him, they’re friends, Porthos confides in Athos about more than the job, they have a good back and forth. But they’re not what Athos wishes. He doesn’t want much to change, just enough that when he’s lying on the floor with insomnia he can think about Porthos in a non-professional way. All the non-professional ways. He’d like to be so unprofessional. 

“Athos,” Constance says, recalling him out of his daydream. “What are we doing here?”

“Right. I was going to see if your d’Artagnan might be pressured into letting us observe the interview, can’t see that happening with DI prick though so let’s go to her house and see what we can find there. She gave us permission for that already, right?”

“Right. Do you believe she’s innocent?”

Athos shrugs. He doesn’t know. Porthos often does get it wrong, he picks out whoever is most obvious and the cases Athos gets are those that aren’t obvious. That’s the nature of the job. Lots of lost cats, straying husbands, long lost family members, and the cases that police are getting wrong. People come to him when they lose faith in the system. Or when they’re guilty. But while Porthos doesn’t always pick out who did it correctly, he is very good at people. Mrs Green might not have done it but she certainly could have and there’s definitely something else going on, some dark undercurrent.

“I’m not ruling her out,” Athos says. “She told you she had reason, maybe she meant this. Porthos gave us a name, too, let’s see if we can find this Celine.”

“Work work work,” Constance grumbles. 

***

The house is still taped up, reminding them that’s a murder scene. There’s a uniform on the perimetre, young and looking cold. She’s looks inexperienced, her governor is probably around somewhere, maybe a sargeant, probably sat inside somewhere with hot coffee. Athos and Constance stand a little away, just hidden. Athos does a quick google search and finds a greasy spoon cafe. There is indeed a sargeant sat, wrapped around a mug of coffee and reading the paper. Athos takes a seat opposite and orders himself a bacon butty and a cup of tea. It takes him ten minutes to sweet-talk the sergeant, getting lucky with one of the women who loves to drink at the pub. And name-dropping Porthos doesn’t hurt. She rolls her eyes and just tells him to stay out of the room where it happened. Athos sends Constance out and gets himself a paper from the rack, settles in with his coffee and food. Constance glares. 

“Not a bloody constable, not your bloody inferior,” she grumbles as she jogs back to the house. “Bloody well as senior as bloody Athos, he should do his own bloody work. Bloody bastard.”

She’s still grumbling when she runs over the constable, his radio open to his sergeant. She hears Athos drawl something about libel and being able to hear her. She ignores that and carries on through the front door. The house is silent. The constable shuts the door behind her and she’s left, completely alone. It feels like someone died here. Like the walls are horrified and are trying to back away. Like the inside is too big for itself. She shivers. She starts in the kitchen, idly noting the sheer amount of weird implements that look like they were never used. There are shelves and shelves of pristine cook books, too. Michael’s, or Marguerite’s? Nothing of note, though. Constance moves on. 

She doesn’t find a thing. She catalogues each room (except the one still covered in blood), taking extra care over the bedroom and the small office upstairs. There’s nothing here that gives her any clues, no secrets hiding in the pages of diaries or hidden in the shoe box at the bottom of the wardrobe. In the office there’s a file that seems to chart some kind of employment history, including some time in the army. A photograph of some innocuous pasty youths in karki, a half-page of A5 that might be a letter from someone signing ‘Armand’, a picture of an apple. Constance takes photos on her phone, makes a few notes, then heads back to the cafe to give Athos a clip around the ear. She refuses to share her findings with him until he’s made her a proper breakfast and doubly refuses to look for Celine until then. Porthos turns up to grab breakfast, somehow knowing, taking a bacon sandwich to go, on his way to a different crime scene, a different case.

***


	4. Chapter 4

With just a first name, ‘Celine’, Constance doesn’t have much to go on but she’s good at this. She sets herself up in the office after breakfast and starts with basic googling. She takes Michael Green, Marguerite Green, the other Mrs Green, and Mr John Cane as starting points, lines up everything she can find on them, and begins searching through for mentions of a Celine. Facebook, emails, city records, twitter. When nothing pops up she takes Mr John Crane and Mr Green and digs into their connection, pinging Porthos to see if he can get her any access to phone records. He doesn’t answer so she uses the number Marguerite gave her to find Mr Green’s phone, tries hacking it. She has more luck, surprisingly, with John Crane’s. She ends up, almost by accident, in his WhatsApp backup, which he seems to do very regularly. There’s not much there, certainly nothing incriminating. She scrolls quickly through his messages but nothing pops out at her and she’s got to be quick so she opens up a chat between him and Mrs Green and scans it - nothing about an affair or anything very much, arrangements for coffee, questions about the other Mrs Green, a discussion about a film. She does a search for ‘Celine’, then for ‘C’. 

“Ha,” she breathes, quickly exiting Crane’s WhatsApp and erasing her presence. 

Armed with a surname and the single detail of ‘nineteen years old’ she finds three possibles. She brings up their social media and rules one out, leaving them with two names. She calls Athos and they head out. The first Celine Leicester is a definite no - she’s incredibly forthcoming about the affair she’s having with a married man but the married man in question comes to the door and then the married man’s wife comes to the door and none of them show any reaction at all to the name Michael Green. They leave her to her polyamory with many apologies and head to the next address Constance has cadged. This one feels more likely from the start - a grey cinder-block stack of flats, everything in disrepair. They head up four flights of stairs and press a buzzer. Nothing happens. Athos leans on the buzzer. Constance reaches out to knock, then gives the door a push. It swings open. 

“Uh oh,” Athos says. 

They go inside, wary, Athos in the lead. Constance splits up with him at the kitchen, following the smell of old food to a bedroom. It’s clean and tidy, a box of sex toys open on the bed along with a couple of packs of condoms, a huge number of different lubes, and a pair of handcuffs. There are a few of the new ten pound notes on the dresser, sliding off one another as she disturbs the air, sticking together and slippery at the same time. She hates the new notes. She opens the closet. 

**

Marcheaux’s having another go at Marguerite. She freely admitted that she’d had suspicions of an affair, that she’d kept it to herself because she knew it was a motive. She’s never wavered from anything else either, though: doesn’t know anything about the rings; has no idea who killed her husband but it wasn’t her; doesn’t know how her blood got on the knife (she’d held out her hands, showing a cut on her finger - a possibility); her hair gets everywhere, she doesn’t know specifically how it got on the knife; she doesn’t have an alibi because she was shopping and she didn’t know she’d need one; she was shopping; no, she wasn’t at home murdering her husband she was shopping. d’Artagnan would have asked her about neighbours and connections, he has asked her, but Marcheaux isn’t looking for possibilities or leads he’s trying to get a confession. d’Artagnan’s watching, exasperated, when he gets the call.

“Not my fault,” d’Artagnan says when Marcheaux comes charging out to cuss at him for interrupting the interview. “We’ve got a new scene, new body. Same guy, Dr Vallon is pretty sure.”

“Dr Vallon,” Marcheaux spits. 

“You coming, or sending me?” d’Artagnan says. 

“Go, I’m staying here, finishing this interview,” Marcheaux says. 

d’Artagnan shrugs and heads out on his own. He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t much like his DI. 

**

When Porthos arrives at the address Constance gave him, he finds Athos sat on the steps out the front with his head between his knees. Constance is sat beside him rubbing between his shoulders. She spots Porthos and waves. 

“Can I kick you off my crime scene?” Porthos says. 

“Nope,” Constance says. “We found the body, Investigating Officer will want to question us.”

“Fine. Constable?” Porthos calls a uniform over to sit with them, then crouches by Athos. Athos never does well with dead bodies, Porthos knows he’s fine, will be fine. He still crouches, unable to keep from touching. Athos raises his head and he’s beautiful, is always beautiful. Porthos touches his cheek and Athos manages a smile. “Right. Be back in a bit.”

He heads up to the flat. d’Artagnan’s texted to say that it’s rented to a Red Sarazin, a known pimp. Porthos would bet Constance is right; this’ll be Celine Leicester’s place, or at least a place she uses. It is definitely not Celine Leicester who fell out of the closet though. Too tall, too old. Clairmont’s already taking photos and finishes as Porthos takes a look around the scene. There’s nothing to suggest who this guy is except money out on the side: client. Porthos kneels to check the body itself, looking for pockets. It’s so similar to Michael - too many stab wounds, skin tugged and cut off in places, blood everywhere. Porthos looks over the body and finds similar angles, similar bruising. The jaw and cheek bones are broken here, just like Michael’s, but otherwise the face is less wrecked. Porthos tilts his head. There’s gold on the victim’s finger. A ring. Porthos sighs. This, like the ones Marcheaux handed over this morning, might be a match. In fact, it’s identical. 

“I’d better text d’Artagnan,” Porthos says to Clairmont, who’s taking the room apart, bagging and tagging and taking pictures, marking everything. 

d’Artagnan arrives in good time, no Marcheaux in sight. He agrees quickly with Porthos that it looks like the same person as last time and goes over the scene, rooting through things. Porthos gets his new body wrapped and bagged and removed. 

“Anything?” he asks d’Artagnan.

“No, no, nope,” d’Artagnan says, emptying dresser drawers and checking, discarding, checking, discarding, before crouching and looking underneath, for some reason, fishing something out. “Yep. Here, wallet. Might not be the victim’s. Hmm, John Doe, yeah right.”

Porthos takes the wallet and sorts through it, removing a couple of cards, loyalty cards and business cards, to take pictures. He makes a list of places to go around and makes a copy to pass to d’Artagnan. 

“I’ll see if I can get a reconstruction of the face,” Porthos says. “See about dental records. Fingerprints. You never know, something might pop.”

“If you get me a picture I’ll love you forever,” d’Artagnan says. “Athos is fine. You didn’t ask but your eyes are soulful, Porthos. I know you were wondering.”

Porthos gives him the finger and heads out. 

**

The autopsy is long again. Clairmont is out with the flu so Porthos does the bulk of the work, Burjon still learning where Clairmont’s becoming experienced, and sticks around with Brujon to try and piece together the guy’s skin, sew him back up. All the ends that he can usually leave to his assistants who haven’t just spent hours at a crime scene then trailing around looking for someone who recognises the cards and things and then chasing up hospital records for potential matches and chasing dentists then… Porthos pulls a stool over and perches, bending over the body, trying to work out whether there’s skin here, whether the discolouration might be a tattoo, whether it might be a bruise with an identifiable indent, anything that might help catch whoever’s doing this. He takes off the eyes protection he’s wearing, seeing better without two barriers between his eyes and the victim. He just hopes his glasses don’t slide off. That happened once. Right into the body. He’d been training then, the ME had been so pissed.

“Sir?” Brujon says, also bent close to the body. 

“Got something?” Porthos asks, looking up. 

“Not sure,” Brujon says. “Maybe.”

Porthos goes around the table and they spend ten minutes cleaning and clearing a bit of skin which turns out to be nothing. Porthos sighs and returns to his bruise/tattoo/shred of skin. 

“Alright John Doe,” Porthos murmurs as he works, soothing, the computer pinging. “Let’s see what you’re hiding my man, come on.”

“Dental records,” Brujon says, over by the desk. 

“You’re not getting blood on my keyboards are you?” Porthos asks. 

“No sir,” Brujon says. “Full set of dentures, right? These are more distinctive than the last. This says they match one of your possibilities, Bonnaire.”

“Any connection to Michael?” Porthos asks. “Hullo Emile, nice to meet you. You do have a secret kept here, hmm?”

“No connection sir. Not on first glance anyway,” Brujon says. 

Porthos grunts acknowledgment and waves Brujon back over. d’Artagnan can follow that up. He’s still working on his tatter of skin when Athos comes sneaking in, looking furtively over his shoulder. Porthos rolls his eyes and gestures for him to sit down and not be ridiculous. Athos sits, trying to look innocent. He’s very fidgety. 

“What is it?” Porthos asks. He’s managed to dig out the skin from where it had been pushed in by the knife. “We noted the weapon was blunt, Bruj? Good. Wasn’t Mrs Green’s kitchen knife this time, probably a pen knife from the size.”

“It’s recorded sir. Do you have something?”

“Yeah, carry on where you are though. Athos?”

“Mrs Green was let go,” Athos says. “She has a proper alibi for this one. She was away up until that morning, lots of witnesses to prove it and credit card history.”

“She still probably did her husband,” Porthos says. 

“Sir,” Brujon says. 

“Mm?” Porthos sits back from his work and picks up a camera, taking a picture of the mark that is definitely bits of a tattoo. He takes off his gloves and goes to get the file they’ve started, finding the body outline and adding a mark to show where the tattoo is. 

“Sir,” Brujon says again, a little more urgently. 

Porthos looks up. Brujon is looking into Emile’s mouth, shining a torch around. He’s straightened up to get Porthos’s attention but he bends again when Porthos approaches as if to make sure then steps back. Porthos shines a light into the mouth, keeping the jaw open. He tries to see… 

“Oh,” Porthos says. “Get Michael out.”

Brujon nods and hurries to their draws, pulling number 8 open and sliding Michael’s body out. Porthos opens his mouth and looks inside too. 

“We could just swap,” Brujon says. 

“Just record it, Brujon,” Porthos says. “Yep, definitely. That is not Emile Bonnaire’s denture, and this is not Michael Green’s. Good catch. Did we get any other ID for Michael?”

“The wife,” Brujon says. “Detective d’Artagnan brought her around.”

“He didn’t,” Athos says, then, when they both turn to look at him, “well he did but she didn’t come in, the family friend did it, Mr John Cane.”

“Emile Bonnaire has no more history of heart trouble than Michael Green does,” Porthos says. “And I bet that that denture is far too wide to fit into Michael’s mouth. And there’s no way this guy fits Bonnaire’s general physical description. If this isn’t Michael, and that isn’t Bonnaire, and this isn’t Bonnaire...”

“There’s another body,” Athos says. 

**

It takes d’Artagnan the rest of the day and half of the next to prove that ‘Michael’ is a John Doe, that ‘Emile Bonnaire’ is Michael Green, and Emile Bonnaire is missing. Seeing as his teeth have shown up in a dead guy’s mouth d’Artagnan decides to presume he’s also dead. 

“This is like that cup trick,” he says, staring gloomily at his desk. 

“Huh?” Constance says, from the guest chair, also staring gloomily at the desk. “There’s something decidedly off about John Cane. You interviewed him?”

“Yeah,” d’Artagnan says. “To both those things. You know, that old trick with the cups and the ball where you have to guess which cup the ball’s under, but it’s not under any of them?”

“Oh, like in Good Omens,” Constance says. 

“No,” d’Artagnan says. “What? Yes?”

“Good Omens, Pratchett and Gaiman, with the babies in a muddle? Never mind,” Constance says. “John Cane. Marguerite is weird around him. At least this body thing means they let her go... Where do you think Celine comes into it? Have you had any luck finding her?”

“No,” d’Artagnan says with a sigh. “I’ve dug up a little; she’s an escort, does a lot of roleplay stuff, been in and out of rehab. She’s only nineteen.”

“I know a couple of sex workers, I’ll have a chat see if anyone knows anything,” Constance says. 

d’Artagnan finds three mugs on his desk, chagrined that he has three mugs and also chagrined that they take finding. He really needs to clear up his desk, too much paperwork. Too many buried mugs. He checks they’re empty and flips them over, ignoring the tea stains. 

“Blue fish is Emile Bonnaire,” d’Artagnan says, tapping the mug with blue fish on it. “Entrepreneur, no next of kin, or no one with any interest in id-ing him or taking the body off our hands, bunch of shady stuff in South America, bunch of shady stuff in France, relatively well off. Teeth turn up in the mouth of,” d’Artagnan taps the next mug along, a MET cup he nicked from the captain, “London’s finest, aka Innocuous Michael Green. Independent businessman, successful, rich, no tech, no online footprint, no shady anything, no run ins with the police, lily white. Still checking lists of associates to see if there’s any correlation. Misidentified as John Doe due to teeth, who is….”

Constance picks up the final mug, a pink Pepper Pig one with a snout and a tail-handle. She turns it, contemplating. They have no idea who he is. A random body and a missing body. d’Artagnan sighs. 

“So for Michael’s murder, the real Michael, time of death is earlier than we thought,” Constance says. “Do we know when he was last seen alive?”

“He was on a business trip,” d’Artagnan says. “Wife, mother and family friend, none had seen him in three days. Porthos says he probably died six days ago which means the first day of his business trip. Puts your friend in the clear, she habitually went to visit her father when he husband was away, this time no different. What’s his business called again? I should know this.”

“Meung Imports, he’s a wine merchant or used to be now the business is just ‘mostly wine’ and he’s mostly retired.”

“That rings a bell,” d’Artagnan says, frowning. “Very distant bell. Probably because it’s written down in one of these bloody files, never mind, carry on.”

“Suspects remain the same, except why would they do this? Switch the bodies, kill John Doe, probably kill Bonnaire?” Constance says. 

“Not a crime of passion,” d’Artagnan says. “Maybe it’s a Strangers on a Train thing.”

“No. This is about the John Doe. It’s his identity that’s being hidden and confused, not Michael Green’s, not Emile Bonnaire’s,” Constance says. 

Before they can go on with their ruminations DI Marcheaux comes over and stands, arms crossed, looking down at Constance with a sneer twisting up his face. 

“What are you doing, boy?” Marcheaux says. 

“I’ll report you to HR if you call me that again,” d’Artagnan says. “Report you to HR again.”

“Yeah yeah. This isn’t a creche, she needs to get out. You’ve got work.”

“I am working.”

“You’ve got a new case,” Marcheaux says. 

“I’m not done with this one,” d’Artagnan says. 

“Yes you are. I’m taking this over, you’re going to go and see about the case of accidental death that just came in. It’s a floater. You’ll observe the autopsy,” Marcheaux says. 

d’Artagnan objects, strenuously, but Marcheaux just gathers d’Artagnan’s files on the Green/Bonnaire/Doe case and strides away. Constance shrugs in sympathy and walks him down the road to Porthos’s office in order to drop off a box of food from Athos, then leaves him, going off to follow up with her contacts to find Celine. d’Artagnan mooches into Porthos’s office sadly and sits sadly in the guest chair and pushes the lunch box across sadly. 

“What’re you in a twist about?” Porthos asks, lifting his head from the desk. He looks tired. He cheers up about the food though and munches his way through a sandwich while d’Artagnan gets out some of his outrage about Marcheaux. Porthos hums and tuts in the right places but taps at his computer while he does and keeps eating.

“And then he said I had to come observe your floater,” d’Artagnan finishes. 

“Hasn’t come in yet, Brujon’s doing the scene,” Porthos says. “Taken you off Green, huh? Fucker.”

“Exactly! It’s my case! We were getting somewhere, I swear.”

“Why’d’you think he’s taken you off?” Porthos asks. 

It’s an idle question but it gets d’Artagnan thinking and he gets out his phone and pulls up Marcheaux’s Facebook page, running through the hundreds of memes and annoying boring posts.

“Ah ha! Here,” d’Artagnan says. “I knew Meung Imports rang a bell.”

“It does?” Porthos asks, yawning around a bite of some kind of potato thing. It looks good. d’Artagnan decides to try and get himself onto Athos’s list of ‘people worth giving food to’. 

“Yeah, Marcheaux. He went on and on about this event thing he was taking a date to, on about how fancy it was cus of the wine,” d’Artagnan says, shoving the phone across into Porthos’s face and using the moment of confused irritation to nick a bite of potato thing. 

“Oi,” Porthos says. “Do that again and I’ll stab you with me fork. Right, he went to a networking thing run by Meung Industries. So what? You think your DI killed Michael Green?!”

“No,” d’Artagnan admits, subsiding. “Guess not. Maybe he knows something, though, or owes someone something.”

“Maybe. I would not encourage you to start thinking he’s dirty just because he tried to be classy for once,” Porthos says. “He’s a prick, but-”

“He’s not a good cop and he could kill someone I would swear it and there is plenty of ways he might be dirty,” d’Artagnan says, crossing his arms. 

“Yeah,” Porthos says, threatening d’Artagnan with his fork. d’Artagnan shuts his mouth. “He’s a prick, but he’s powerful. He’s well liked, for some reason, he plays politics, the higher ups like him. Well, other than Treville but even he’s reined himself in on Marcheax because of higher higher-ups. Don’t play out a hunch that’s got no basis in fact, that’s all. Look, I will poke that hornet’s nest, if you’re insistent. I can take the sting.”

“Fine,” d’Artagnan says. “I’ll leave it alone but only if you get me invited to dinner by Athos, he makes nice food. I want in.”

“Not on your life,” Porthos says, looking up at a tap on the door. 

“I’m back,” Brujon says. “You need me for this?”

“Yeah,” Porthos says. “Go throw up and change your clothes, take twenty minutes, I’ll get started without you.”

“Thank you sir,” Brujon says, hurrying away. 

“Right. Come on, pup, put Michael away, let’s see what we can do with this poor fucker fished out of the Thames.”

d’Artagnan does his best. It helps that the smell of a week-dead body drives most thoughts out. It only gets worse as Porthos peels away layers of clothing and then Brujon comes back and they open him up, bloated and full of gas, and d’Artagnan can think of nothing but getting through the next ten minutes without throwing up. Porthos finishes up, sending both d’Artagnan and Brujon out. They rush off to shower, both of them spending long minutes scrubbing under the hot water. Then they hover guiltily in the hallway, waiting for Porthos to emerge. He does, proclaiming natural causes, passing the recording and evidence over to Brujon to write up a preliminary and going to his own shower. d’Artagnan falls into step with him. 

“Quick turnover,” d’Artagnan observes, wanting to talk about the Green case again but not wanting to push Porthos. He doesn’t want to be stabbed with a fork. 

“Not having him hanging around,” Porthos says. “Too much deterioration. The full report will have to wait a bit but Brujon could use the wind down of an easy prelim. I’m showering, d’Artagnan.”

“Does the new body for Michael Green tell you anything?” d’Artagnan asks. 

“Tattoo, his wife didn’t mention a tattoo, it looks like a very old army tat. Athos was probably right, it probably wasn’t the wife. I’ve taken another look at those rings, Mrs Green’s doesn’t fit but one that she swears blind isn’t hers and she’s never seen before does. It matches exactly the one Michael, the second Michael, was wearing. He has two copies of the same ring? It’s odd. Marcheaux says he found it in the Greens’ kitchen, not the crime scene the other house. Only other person been in there is John Cane.”

“John Cane? Constance is liking him for it, too,” d’Artagnan says. “He’s a nurse, he’s done nursing his whole life, he’s lived a completely innocuous life. There is nothing about John Cane that’s even remotely interesting let alone suggestive, and he’s alibi-ed.”

“Didn’t say he did it,” Porthos says. “Just that it might be his ring. Has anyone spoken to Mr Green’s mother?”

“She has Alzheimer's, she barely recognises herself let alone anyone else,” d’Artagnan says. “All she told me was that she’s marrying a comte. Constance talked to her and came back with ‘oh so much gay such queer in love now so much love she’s amazing, amazing’. Why?”

Porthos shrugs and steps into the shower room, firmly shutting the door on d’Artagnan. d’Artagnan goes to visit the scene the floater was found just to check, and then to write up his report. They have no ID so no family to tell. He puts the file in his out-tray and slips away before Marcheaux can see he’s closed this case and try and fob him off with more busy-work.

**


	5. Chapter 5

Constance takes her bike to visit Flea. Her and Charon live out in Elephant and Castle, right on the cusp of Camberwell, shitty traffic but ok on a motorbike if you, like Constance, are used to the life-and-limb London driving. She weaves her way through and parks up, jogging the six flights to their flat, ringing the bell. She met Flea years and years ago through Porthos but where Porthos and Flea have gone separate ways Flea and Constance have grown closer. Flea answers now with baby Porthos on her hip and he squeals in delight to see her, yelling ‘aunty Connie!’ at the top of his voice. Lots of times. Drowning out any attempt on Flea or Constance’s part to talk. 

“Hello pipsqueak,” Constance says, lifting him out of Flea’s arms, the cloud of his hair puffing into her face. “Oh you smell like apples.”

He tells her a rambling story about eating apples, which Flea supplements to explain how funny it is to rub segments of apple against your head. Porthos’s peels of laughter make Constance smile and she kisses his chubby cheek. 

“Are you here for a social call?” Flea asks, her son quieting a bit, wriggling down and dragging Constance in toward his bedroom to show her toys. She gives Flea an apologetic look then kicks off her shoes and goes willingly, Flea following. “Charon’s out so we’ll have to put up with him. He’s a menace, just as bad as his name-sake. We tempted fate naming you, my little hurricane.”

“Yup,” Porthos says, lying down with his legs in the air. “My namesake.”

He falls into babble for a bit, Constance works out that he’s telling her an adventure story about the other Porthos, related (with many factual inaccuracies, Constance has heard this story) by Charon as a bedtime story. 

“That’s lovely Pip,” Flea says. “Mamma and Constance need to talk.”

Porthos follows them to the kitchen and demands to get up into his highchair, kicking until he gets some strawberries. He quickly tires of both them and food and thunders off back to his bedroom, leaving them with a few moments. 

“I’m looking for a woman called Celine,” Constance says, taking advantage of their time. “She’s been a sex worker for at least two years, a drug habit, I have a possible address. She’s young, nineteen.”

Constance pulls up the address where they found the real body of Michael Green and passes the phone to Flea. 

“Oh, that’s Red Sarazin’s place,” Flea says. “Yeah, Celine. I know of her, mostly because she’s one of Sarazin’s girls. We end up doing a lot of outreach with those women, he’s the fucker who deserves to be in prison but they won’t arrest him unless someone agrees to testify and most people quite like not being beaten half to death.”

“Do you know where she might go?” Constance says. “I think she’s in trouble. I won’t pass on anything to the police if you say so.”

“Not the problem, lovely,” Flea says. “I dunno, don’t know her really, she might go hang around the Court’s drop in, might use the shelter, some of the women do turn up. But I just don’t know her. You’ll want to talk to… who would know? Ok, Milady, but stay away from her, she’s as bad as Sarazin, super predatory. Ninon does a bunch of the outreach, she might know? No, probably not with someone like Celine, you’d want to find one of the girls she buddies with. I don’t know who that might be, but Simone might. Simone Pepin?”

“I know her,” Constance says. 

Porthos comes thumping back in, then, and they spend a bit of time with him. Constance can’t stay too long and Porthos makes a fuss when she goes but she hears him laughing and happy again before she’s halfway down the first flight of stairs. Simone Pepin, like Flea, has a child and homelife, a husband, but still does the work, supporting the lot of them and a sister besides. She and Flea both set themselves up in business with lots of protection, banding together with other women to keep away from pimps, keeping their circles queer and sex positive. Now they run the Court of Miracles, a charity not-for-profit, started up with Ninon Larroque. They focus mostly on helping the sex-working community, keeping each other healthy and supporting the women in the industry but Ninon also does some lobbying for recognition of sex work as a legitimate business and for legalization and protection laws. Constance has done some work with them and worked for them years ago before deciding to take up investigation and gatecrashing her way into Athos’s de la Fère Investigations, renamed Williams and de la Fère Investigations. Also known as Investigators Anonymous because Porthos really can be an arse at times. 

Simone welcomes Constance in but she’s getting ready for work, Pierre’s just home and they’re doing a hand over with homework and dinner and trouble in school etc. Constance sits on the countertop and asks her questions in the moments between and Simone takes her to work, taking a detour and introducing her to a woman called Sarah. All of twenty two, a little strung out, Simone races through a quick ‘got her into rehab, has agreed to join our collective and leave Sarazin, worried about Celine, knows you’re not a cop but you’ll have to get her trust you’. Then she leaves Constance with Sarah. Who is sullen and uninterested in helping Constance. 

“Just tell me a little about Celine,” Constance says. “We found a dead body at an address -”

“It wasn’t her place,” Sarah interrupts, lifting her chin and giving Constance a defiant look. “She used to take the more up-market guys there but it’s Sarazin’s place. Celine was his favourite for a bit and she got keys. She didn’t do it.”

“I know,” Constance says. “I don’t think she did. I think she’s in trouble.”

“I dunno where she’s gone, I’ve looked everywhere she might be,” Sarah says. “If it was a different girl - woman, I’d have said she might’ve gone home, but Celine wouldn’t ever have done that. Only her aunt’s left and she’s religious and too strict and shit like that. Didn’t like that Celine… I love her, okay? Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Yeah, ok,” Constance says. “Thank you for talking to me about her. I’m going to write my number on a blank bit of paper, so no one’ll find my card on you or know you’ve talked to me, okay?”

“Yeah ok.”

Constance leaves Sarah her number and heads back to the pub, ruminating over the little she’s learnt. Almost nothing. 

**

“You have anyone could watch the bar?” Porthos says, coming into the pub and sitting on his usual stool but not waiting for Athos to finish serving the rest of the custom. Athos looks pointedly around - he’s alone this afternoon. “Great. Never mind.”

Athos pours him juice and stands with him until he’s called away, returning each time to stay by Porthos. He’s tired, or maybe exhausted. Athos examines the lines of him, his hunched shoulders, the tight lines of his face, his glasses on the bar beside him. He looks soft and Athos wants to reach out, to touch him, hold his arm, pull him close, press a kiss to his forehead. He doesn’t because that’s not something they’ve done so far. Instead he gives Porthos the key to his tiny flat upstairs, along with the carton of grape juice. Porthos gives him a smile for that weird gesture so Athos doesn’t try to defend himself. He wanted to help; Porthos likes juice; Porthos can have all the juice. Athos sighs and goes to take d’Artagnan’s order as he too slouches in and slumps at the bar. 

“All ok?” Athos asks. 

“Marcheaux,” d’Artagnan says. Athos hums in commiseration. He’s heard a lot about this DI. “Porthos says he’ll poke the hornet. I think he’s in on it.”

“In on what? Who is? Porthos is?”

“No, Marcheaux, I think he’s somehow connected to Michael Green.”

“Ah,” Athos says. Constance comes through from the back, more frustrated than the other two but also a little slumped. “Constance, come cheer our good DS up and watch the bar for me. You can talk shop.”

Constance brightens seeing d’Artagnan here and he brightens to see her. Athos congratulates himself on his skills and heads upstairs to Porthos. He’s lying on the sofa in the livingroom slash bedroom, on his back, feet hanging over the end. Athos leans in the doorway. 

“Why not lie on the bed?” Athos asks. 

“Because,” Porthos says. “Makes me think things.”

“Things?” Athos says. 

“Things,” Porthos agrees, sending him a look. 

Athos shifts as Porthos rakes his eyes up and down Athos’s body, lingering, heavy. 

“Oh,” Athos says. His lips twitch. “Do carry on.”

Porthos laughs and heaves himself up off the sofa, coming over. 

“‘Carrying on’ would entail more than we’ve thought of,” Porthos says, hand running down the buttons of Athos’s shirt. “Hmm?”

“As I said, carry on,” Athos says, looking up at Porthos, letting go of his ‘what ifs’ and uncertainty and everything except the feeling of looking at Porthos, of being close to Porthos, of Porthos coming into the pub most days, of sitting talking over cases late into the night, drifting onto other subjects, of sitting on the roof to smoke pot Porthos pretends to think is tobacco, lying together on the floor after a long day to not think about a case, feeding Porthos, buying grape juice for him, drinking scotch together. So much of Athos’s life is entangled with Porthos. Why not this too? 

“I need to go,” Porthos says, shutting his eyes, glasses crooked. “Need to meet with Treville, drink whiskey, ask him about service tattoos. I need to…”

“You need to rest,” Athos says, firmly. “It’s only five pm, the captain will be working until at least seven pm with all these murders. Also it’s Saturday, he comes here to drink his whiskey on Saturdays.”

“Rest sounds gooooood,” Porthos moans, tucking his hand into Athos’s shirt in a wholly unsexy way, resting his head on Athos’s shoulder. “Clairmont was out all day and Brujon went home early after a floater, he kept going white and rushing to the loo.”

Athos pushes into the room so he can shut the door and Porthos straightens, toeing off his shoes. There’s something blurry and vulnerable about him like this; in Athos's bedroom, in his socks, his jumper a little bit too big. Athos hums and runs a hand over his chest. 

“Can I do this, now? Touch you?” Athos asks. 

“You touch me anyway,” Porthos mutters. 

“True. Can I do this now, touch you when I mean more?” Athos re-words. 

“So long as you don’t expect me to actually do more,” Porthos says. “I’m knackered.”

Athos wraps a hand around Porthos’s arm, pulls him close, presses a kiss to his forehead. Then he just holds him for a while, standing quiet together until the tension drains out of them both. He lies down with Porthos, stretching out on the bed, and they talk quietly, Athos admitting to his desire. Not just for Porthos, for sex, for more, but for what they already have. For what they already have to mean as much to Porthos as it means to Athos. Porthos returns his declarations with mumbled agreements, clumsily running his hand over Athos’s side, his cheek, threading a hand into his hair to pull him into a rough kiss. 

“This is a good start,” Athos whispers. “I love having you knitted into my life, Porthos du Vallon.”

“Today I absolutely know I smell a bit funky,” Porthos mumbles, half asleep and only half listening to Athos. 

“Yes, today you smell a little funky. You smell like sweat, Porthos, and as if you’ve been up for a really, really long time. And tiredness. You smell of tiredness,” Athos says, stroking Porthos’s cheek and taking the glasses that Porthos has forgotten he’s wearing. 

“Absurd man,” Porthos whispers, sounding awfully pleased about it. 

He falls asleep cocooned against Athos’s chest, held, embraced, warm and safe. Athos revels in being the one to keep him close and warm and safe, joys with it, sinks into it. All he can think is at ‘last’. 

**

“It is a service tattoo, or kind of,” Treville says, later, when Porthos shows him the drawing and photograph. “You’ve nearly got it.”

He takes off his coat and jumper and undoes his shirt, pulling it away along with his vest to show Porthos a tattoo, invisible most of the time on the back of his shoulder, small and unassuming. It’s a match, Porthos can see even though, as Treville says, he only nearly got it right. Treville’s is still vibrant, still visible.

“We all did it, with a pin and some crappy ink, I got it done properly only later,” Treville says. “This was years and year ago, christ I must’ve been… nineteen? Twenty? Jesus. Michael Green had one? I didn’t know him. There were three of us who got these tattoos. Me, Louis de Bourbon, and Armand Richelieu.”

“So how come Michael turned up with it on his body?” Porthos asks. 

“I don’t know, I can’t see any connection,” Treville says .

They’re sat at the bar, a bottle of whiskey between them, Athos leaning to listen in when he’s not busy. Constance is sat too, taking notes, out drinking them both. She looks beautiful in the dim gold light, hair cascading around her.

“You’re sure this time that it really is Michael Green’s body?” Constance says. 

“Yeah, Mrs Green, the younger one, came and did the ident herself,” Porthos says. “She recognised him. Also the computer finally spat out partial facial reconstructions on them both, it matches him. The other is less defined, they broke a lot of bones in his face, it’s pretty generic.”

“You know,” Treville says, frowning into his glass. “There is… there was someone Richelieu worked with, after I got out. By that time I think Richelieu was already working for special branch, I think this guy was part of that but he was only ever introduced to me as a soldier. Rochefort. I think he got this tattoo. Richelieu said something once that made me think maybe… Michael Green could have worked with Richelieu.”

“He was in the army! I found the pictures. Now that is a solid lead,” Constance says, getting to her feet. 

“Not tonight,” Athos says, levelly, from across the bar. “You’re finishing up down here, tonight.”

“Where’s the pup?” Porthos asks. “I bet he tended bar through university, he seems the type.”

“I didn’t even go to uni,” d’Artagnan says, coming back from the loo. “I can tend bar though. Why?”

“Great!” Constance says. 

Athos rolls his eyes but gives d’Artagnan a quick induction. Constance rushes up to the office and Porthos is left with Treville to drink in silence. Treville leaves half an hour later and Athos gives Porthos a shy smile, inviting him back up to the flat. 

**

Porthos wakes at six am. He’s in Athos’s arms and bed which is nice. It’s six ack fuckng emma which is not nice. Athos shifts and holds him closer, half awake, trying to soothe him back to sleep, which is nice. But his phone is buzzing, which is not nice. Porthos sighs and picks up, making a vaguely greeting-ish sound to indicate he is here, awake and listening. Hopefully it’s not work. 

“Is this Porthos du Vallon? I know your mother.”

“So do lots of people,” Porthos growls. If this is some fucker trying to scam him into giving tons of money to some cause to knit socks for cats he’s going to boycott his mother’s dinners for months. “Who is this?”

“Aramis.”

“Aramis the priest?!” Porthos says, sitting up, heart beating a little harder. “Why is my mum’s priest ringing me at six am on a Sunday? Is she ok?”

“Yes, sorry, she’s fine. She’s very well. She was at the service yesterday boasting about you and I’m sure she’ll be back this morning to show off a little more, just like every week. I’m so sorry for worrying you,” Aramis says. 

“Yeah, so why are you ringing me then?”

“I know you’re a policeman,” Aramis says. “She gave me your number. I’m taking it on good faith that she’s right and you’re a good person, not just a policeman, and that you’re not going to be a prick.”

“I’m definitely gonna be a prick if you don’t tell me why you’ve woken me up at fuck o’clock on a sunday,” Porthos says. 

“I have someone here,” Aramis says. “She sought refuge but I think she needs more help than I can offer.”

“Give me more or I’ll hang up.”

“I don’t know a lot, she gave her name as Celine.”

Porthos gives Aramis a reprieve. He wakes Athos and drags him out of the house, remembers neither of them have wheels, notices Constance’s bike still out the back, and drags Athos back up to the office. Constance is asleep on the little cot-bed in there. Porthos lifts her keys and leaves her a note, rushing back to Athos’s flat to find his glasses, dragging Athos to the bike. He grumbles at Porthos, half-asleep, and holds on like a sloth, face buried in Porthos’s shoulder all the way out to Croydon. Porthos parks at his Mum’s and taps on the door, poking his head in the back, right into the kitchen, to say good morning. She’s up and cooking breakfast so he promises to come back after they’ve been to church. She smiles sunnily at him as if she hasn’t cooked enough to feed an army, as if it wasn’t always her plan to lure him into an unscheduled visit with promises of so much good food he’s sure to burst. Athos gives his soft stomach an affectionate and amused pat. 

Porthos has met Aramis (more than once, why the man felt the need to introduce his phonecall with the ominous ‘I know your mother’ Porthos can’t imagine but he’s a slightly odd man, so); it will be a cold day in hell when his mother’s church gets a new priest and Porthos isn’t at once given all the gossip and invited to tea with them. He’s been to church with his mother a few times, been to a few cousins’ christenings, been to a wedding. Aramis is a familiar face waiting at the back door of the church, around where the hall and office is. Porthos raises a hand in greeting and gives him a hug, because du Vallons greet their priests with a hug (‘no one hugs their priest, priests much be the most touch-starved humans. Except perhaps us queer people. Queer priests must have it bad’, she’s said on more than one occasion, dimpling at the priest in question, in one fell swoop outing herself, demanding their acceptance, reminding them that queer people can be priests and have a place in the church, and stating her intention. If they really don’t like hugging, this is their chance to say so). Aramis has taken to this du Vallon tradition. He gives good hugs, sinking into Porthos’s arms. Athos clears his throat; uncomfortable with the display not jealous. Porthos knows for a fact that Athos is poly and while they’ll need to talk boundaries, jealousy is not Athos’s usual go-to. 

“So,” Porthos says. 

“She’s inside,” Aramis says. “She’s scared and she’s not sure she wants to talk to you. Is he a policeman?”

“Private investigator,” Porthos says. “And publican.”

“Is that relevant?” Athos asks. 

“Yes,” Porthos says. “He also regularly smokes weed on the roof.”

“Ahh, reckless and illegal. I like you,” Aramis says, holding out a hand to Athos. 

Porthos smirks and leaves them to their introductions and Aramis to his flirting, slipping in and through to Aramis’s office. There’s a young woman sat there, hands clenched, watching the door anxiously. Porthos gets himself in and sitting, smaller and lower, before saying hi. He takes off his jacket and opens his sweater to show his braces and shirt and soft stomach, sitting in a relaxed position, arms out. He offers a small smile and holds out a hand she can shake if she likes. She takes it tentatively and he slowly clasps it in both of his, holding on a moment before letting her go. 

“I’m Porthos,” he says, keeping it simple. 

“Celine,” She says. “Um, you’re with the police.”

“I’m the chief medical examiner,” Porthos says, smiling again. “I’m here because of Aramis and because of my mother, not because of the police.”

“Your mother?”

“Marie-Cessette du Vallon,” Porthos says, letting his affection curl around the name. He’s so proud of her name, of his name. She kept it all through her shitty marriage, kept hold of their family and their heritage. Even though it was his grandfather’s before hers he still feels like it’s come to him through women, through the strength and fearlessness of femininity that’s in his blood. “She’s a good, compassionate woman, who likes to stick her oar in.”

“I’ve met her,” Celine says, smiling widely. Porthos smiles back. Celine’s falls away and he matches her, turning serious but keeping a small bit of his pleasure at talking about his mum. His love for her. Keeping her warmth and welcome. Celine’s voice is very small and very dry for the next bit. “I found him like that.”

“Do you know who he was?”

“I know who I expected to find there,” Celine whispers, eyes filling with tears.

“Not a good man,” Porthos says, quietly. Celine shakes her head. “If you can give me a name it would be helpful. No matter what happens nothing you say here will go further without your permission.”

“Rochefort,” she whispers. “He calls himself the Comte but I know his name. I don’t know if that was him.”

“I know the name in connection,” Porthos says, not answering the implicit quesiton of ‘was it him?’. “Is there anything else?”

Celine shakes her head. No matter what Porthos asks after that, she’s clammed up. Won’t say anything more. Porthos eventually gives up, writing his number and Constance’s number on a piece of paper, then adding Flea’s and the Court’s. She smiles a tiny bit seeing the names and numbers so Porthos tells her he grew up with Flea, knows them, knows the service. She nods and folds the paper carefully, making a show of putting it somewhere safe. He nods and gets up, buttoning himself up again. He heads out and finds Athos and Aramis still where he left them, Aramis leaning alluringly in the doorway, eyes on Athos. 

“Very priestly, does my mother know you make eyes at everyone like this?” Porthos grumbles, pushing past (noting idly that Athos flushes a very pleasing red at that). 

“She does,” Aramis says, smiling widely. “I tried it on with her.”

“Oh lord,” Porthos mutters, grabbing Athos’s arm and leaving Aramis to his laughter. “Wanker.”

“I enjoyed him,” Athos says, mildly. “He gave me his number.”

“Feel free,” Porthos says. “He’s a good man, mostly kind, fun so long as he’s not talking theology. Then he is dull as eating cardboard.”

“Good to know,” Athos says. 

They go back to Marie-Cessette’s for breakfast but Athos leaves without eating, taking the bike back to the pub to meet with Constance and pass on the information. Porthos texts it to d’Artagnan and then flips his phone over so he can’t see it, sitting down with his mother and her girlfriend, letting himself relax and enjoy himself for half an hour.

**


	6. Chapter 6

“Rochefort,” d’Artagnan says, walking into Treville’s office on Marcheaux’s heels. Marcheaux, who had said he had a meeting with Treville in order to get rid of d’Artagnan, scowls. 

“What nonsense is this? You have work, sergeant,” Marcheaux snaps. 

“Rochefort, the connection. I’ve just checked. He worked for Richelieu, with Michael Green, and he invested in some of Emile Bonnaire’s more shady business things. Cheap labour, garment factories, that sort of thing. Not technically illegal but morally scummy, especially the way they did it.”

“Why kill them?” Treville asks, waving Marcheaux impatiently away when he tries to speak.

“Constance says she has something,” d’Artagnan says. “She says you should hear it.”

“Right,” Treville says, getting up. 

Marcheaux opens his mouth but Treville ignores him, sweeping out. d’Artagnan rushes out on his heels, sending Marcheaux a cheery wave. 

**

They meet in Athos’s pub. Porthos is there eating what is either breakfast, brunch or lunch (it’s 11am, could be any of those) and he sits quietly to listen. Constance sits beside him, vibrating with the adrenaline of feeling a solution within reach. She waits for everyone to be seated and then spreads her finds out on the bar. 

“Ok. Michael Green and Rochefort were in the army with Richelieu, probably special branch or what-not,” she says. “Richelieu invested in Emile Bonnaire’s business really early, it was Richelieu’s money that set him up and it was Richelieu’s men who helped get him established. Namely, Rochefort. Michael Green appears to have thrown some money in their direction and then bolted, he set up his own business after he got out of the service and that seems to be clean as a whistle. Except for his investment in Bonnaire.”

“Is Rochefort the other body?” Treville asks. 

“Nah, doesn’t fit,” Porthos says. “Could be the missing body but it’s more likely that’s Bonnaire, what with the denture and things. No tattoo where expected either. Informant says she’s sure Rochefort’s tattoo is in the same place as Michael’s, just under his ribs. ” 

“We never got them in the same place,” Treville says. “Louis’s was on his wrist, he got it removed because of how visible it was. Richelieu's was on his bum. He was like that. Before he turned churchy.”

“Richelieu had a history of heart trouble, too,” Porthos says. 

“I think so,” Treville says. Constance sees the inference click - Treville pales. “You think…?”

“Connie’s thought,” Porthos says, inclining his head to her (it was definitely their joint epiphany but Constance takes the credit graciously). “I pulled Clairmont in to check, I’ll get him to see if he can do anything with the gentleman’s butt cheek and dental records.”

“He had teeth,” Treville says. 

“Yeah, his mouth was a mess,” Porthos says, wincing. “Someone could’ve knocked his teeth out, I’d not know from what’s left there.”

“You think Rochefort killed Michael Green, Emile Bonnaire and Richelieu? Because of some shady business deal?” Treville asks. 

“I don’t really know a why,” Constance says. “About four years ago Rochefort fell off the radar. As far as he’d been on it before that, I only have a name because Porthos gave me one. There’s a guy online, a bunch of different identities and names that I’ve connected and with a name I traced them to Rochefort. But like I say, as of four years ago he all-but vanishes. Just before that there are a couple of threads on places like 4chan and Reddit, shit-holes that bury everything where arseholes go unnoticed. Resentment, anger, all aimed at this group of three men. I still have no idea who Rochefort is or where he is now, though. He’s erased all pictures of himself. There’s nothing that might lead to where he is, or who he is.”

“We’d better find him,” Treville says. 

“You’re good at sketching Connie,” Porthos says. 

“Yeah,” Constance says, suspiciously. “I do identikit things sometimes when we can’t get hold of your police ones.”

“Good. Me and Con will get us a drawing of Rochefort,” Porthos says, finishing his food and getting up. He picks up his jacket and leans over the bar to kiss Athos (and that’s new, Constance thinks, watching, liking how happy both men look with themselves for it). “Come on.”

“I’ll look for a motive,” d’Artagnan says, bouncing excitedly on the stool and nearly falling off. He’s adorable. Constance gives him her own statement-making kiss and he giggles before biting it sharply back, flushing and smiling at her. 

“Do it from here, I’m not in the mood for dealing with your DI,” Treville says, also gathering his things. “Athos?”

Athos raises an eyebrow at Porthos a tiny bit and Porthos give a tiny shrug. d’Artagnan moves behind the bar, Treville and Athos head out the front, Constance and Porthos head out the back. Porthos makes noises about driving but Constance is still mad at him for nicking the bike this morning and stranding her here - she wanted to surprise Marguerite and Mr John Cane with early Sunday morning questions and she hadn’t been able to. She makes him ride pillion, holding onto her. He doesn’t seem to mind, he gives her instructions and hums in her ear as they whip through London. He introduces her to Aramis, his mother’s priest, and Aramis tries flirting with her. She considers giving him a slap to teach him better but decides to go with a cool ‘you’re batting out of your league, son’ which makes Porthos laugh. He nods seriously at Aramis in agreement though and they both follow after her as she sweeps inside. Celine is setting up some tables covered with art supplies in the hall and Constance heads over, assuming that she’s why they’re here. 

“Hi, I’m Constance,” she says, helping transfer things from two crates onto the tables. 

“Celine,” the woman says. “Aramis said I shouldn’t tell people that but I know who you are. Get some chairs?”

They do six chairs to each table and Celine talks as she works, describing the man she knows as the Comte, but whose name she saw once as Rochefort. Constance sits when they’ve put out 24 chairs and starts sketching. Celine sits beside her, correcting lines and shapes and colouring. It’s when she adds a scar below his lip that Constance stops, staring at her picture. 

“Oh bloody hell,” She says. 

Porthos wanders over from where he and Aramis were putting up signs and putting out snacks (it seems to be some kind of family art day) and looks down at her drawing. 

“Fuck me, that’s John Cane,” Porthos says. His fist hitting the table makes Constance and Celine jump and Constance glares hard at him for the adrenaline rush but more for the wide-eyed desperate way Celine stares at the table. “Sorry.”

“There was no way of knowing,” Aramis soothes, coming over. “Celine, go on into the office, Marie-Cessette will be here soon to drive you in to rehab.”

“‘ll do as I like,” Celine mutters, but she slouches out toward the office. 

“Sorry,” Porthos says again. “That’s frustrating. Should’ve noticed. He’s the one who id’ed the bloody body as Michael Green, he was on the scene that first day when I arrived, d’Artagnan bloody well told me; he said Mrs Green senior calls John Cane ‘comte’, same as Celine said they called Rochefort. It’s all there in front of me.”

“Except that we dug around John Cane and beyond a gut feeling he’s clean. Plus the comte thing wasn’t very clear and she said it to me as well and I never picked it up. If Rochefort can completely erase his picture online he can replace Cane’s with his own,” Constance says. “And you’re CME, not a detective, it wasn’t your job to look it over. I’ll call Athos, we’ll inform Mrs Green.”

“Wait till they arrest the fucker,” Porthos says, already pulling out his phone to call Treville. 

Constance nods. She’s not stupid, she knows that. 

**

Porthos returns to his office and his table and it’s the work of moments to confirm Richelieu’s identity from the work Clairmont’s done. Cause of death makes sense with Richelieu’s medical history. Michael’s actual body is much cleaner than Richelieu’s, the cuts are precise and even-handed, there’s no more than necessary done to him. Porthos marks the difference as he goes over the two preliminary reports, building up a full report for each. They have no body for Emile Bonnaire, maybe he’s not dead at all. Maybe he’s in cahoots with Rochfort. Porthos takes off his glasses and rubs his face, tired all of a sudden. Athos was right - not the wife. Athos is often right. Porthos wonders, if he wishes hard enough, whether one of Athos’s excellent grilled cheese sandwiches will miraculously appear before him. 

“A little bird told me you’re doing full reports,” Athos says. Porthos’s head snaps up and he gapes at Athos. He’s leaning in the doorway, black jeans, hands in pockets, needs a shave (always does, never gets to it), hair pulled back into a half ponytail. 

“Don’t suppose you brung a sandwich with you?” Porthos says, narrowing his eyes. He should wish for things more often. Like for Athos to be closer, maybe rubbing Porthos’s back. Hmm. 

“Nope. I brought you food though,” Athos says, setting a lunchbox on the desk, nudging it when Porthos only stares. Porthos opens it and finds warm, cheesy pasta in sauce. It smells so good. Athos laughs. “I’m not even that good a cook, you know, but the way you appreciate my food makes me consider going on Great British Bake Off or something.”

“That’s baking,” Porthos says, pulling his food closer and tucking in, kicking his guest chair out to encourage Athos to stay a bit. “You can’t bake for shit.”

Athos shrugs-and-sits in one odd, graceful movement. Porthos puts his glasses back on and eats one-handed, going over his notes and recordings. He likes to get things straight before he starts trying to write everything up. There’s an order and a form and he has his own very specific way of doing things, he organises every bit of evidence, everything he’s found, in his mind as he finishes his pasta. 

“This is very distracting,” Porthos says, when he’s done, beginning to type up Richelieu’s report. 

“Hmm?” Athos murmurs, deep in a book and not paying Porthos much attention. 

“The body switch, the marks, the dentures, the misidentifications. It all feels like so much white noise,” Porthos says. “At the bottom of it, Richelieu was killed in an over-the-top way, too violent to be anything except passionate. Michael Green was methodical, professional. Rochefort has a hundred percent done this before, Athos. Also, I don’t get why the pantomime and drama, he could’ve cleared Richelieu off quickly and quietly, no one’d have noticed. No one’s even registered the fucker as missing.”

“So,” Athos says, putting his book aside. “Why the melodrama?”

“Exactly,” Porthos says. “Thing is, everything about Richelieu is, eh, but he was found at Mrs Green’s, in her livingroom. The marks of passion point to her, the knife was her kitchen knife, had her prints on, the ring was then found on her kitchen cabinet. We found the messages between Michael and Celine way after the fact.”

“Planted?”

“Or drawn attention to, either way. Mrs Green is as much a target as Richelieu, here,” Porthos says.

“You’re the doctor, I’m the detective,” Athos says. 

“Detect then,” Porthos says, flopping back, leaning so far his chair tips into the wall. It’s comfortable. 

“I told you from the start she was being framed,” Athos points out, far too smuggly. Porthos glares. Athos shrugs, grinning. “Alright. Richelieu and Michael Green were linked by business, but maybe there’s a link between Richelieu and Mrs Green, too. We didn’t think to look because the business link seemed obvious and it seemed obvious that Mr and not Mrs Green was the target. Emile Bonnaire might just be further obfuscation for whatever is really going on.”

“Business as a motive seems tenuous,” Porthos says. 

“Is this relevant to your report? Are you using me for procrastination?”

“We haven’t even found Bonnaire, maybe he’s not dead,” Porthos says. Athos’s phone pings and so does Porthos’s, a moment later. “Rochefort’s been arrested. Oh good, Marcheaux has sent me an angry litany of why I should do a better job and why he needs this report two days ago. Does he have any idea how long these fuckers take? And he wants two of them.”

Porthos goes back to work but he does so grumpilly. 

**

Constance just slips in behind d’Artagnan when they go to Marguerite’s house. He gives her a bullet proof vest and she stays quiet and no one questions it, there’s too much else going on. They have an armed response unit with them because, well mostly because Rochefort has already more-or-less skinned two maybe three people. So there’s that. Constance is glad of the wall of muscular, hyped up people between her and the house. They spread out around windows and the back door and then d’Artagnan knocks and leans casually, looking very harmless, kind of like a puppy. Constance bites back her smile and tries to look grim and proper. Marguerite answers. She recognises d’Artagnan but at once her eyes flick over him and on, scanning the other police officers, the armed response trying to look innocuous. She sees Constance and meets her eyes for long moments while d’Artagnan cheerfully tells her he has a few more questions while trying to see inside the house to judge if their suspect is about. 

“Of course,” Marguerite says, still looking at Constance as if waiting for answers. “I’ve only just got back from days of questioning at the police station but sure, why not?”

She doesn’t stand aside, instead folding her arms and waiting. d’Artagnan isn’t phased. He starts in on a few run-of-the-mill things: does she know her husband’s business partners? Does she know Richelieu? What does she know about Celine?

“I’ve answered these,” Marguerite says. “Your boss put them to me. In a much more aggressive fashion, sure, but I recognise the questions.”

d’Artagnan keeps on with the questions, everyone on edge waiting to see if Rochefort will make himself known in the house. Marguerite, her gaze gone a little glazed at d’Artagnan’s continued bombardment, gives Constance a sharp look then rolls her eyes and shakes her head. She cuts d’Artagnan off and stalks into the house, waving him in after her. Constance and the others watch as Marguerite ostentatiously walks d’Artagnan through the house with a snappy ‘you must be looking for something, you’re clearly not here to question me those are stupid repetitive questions’. d’Artagnan comes out looking a little put upon and they pull all the armed officers back from the building and back into the van and they get into the car and head for the assisted living facility where Mrs Green Senior lives. This time Constance goes first because it’s a place full of vulnerable people and Mrs Green Senior likes Constance. She’s in the garden with ‘John Crane’, sitting side by side. She smiles at Constance, a sad, understanding kind of smile that doesn’t bode well. 

“This is comte,” Mrs Green says. “He’s going to marry me.”

“Are you going to marry him?” Constance asks, smiling, giving John Crane an easy grin. “Mrs Green, I’m here from your daughter in law, she asked me to stick my head in on my way home and check you over.”

“In a police-issue bullet-proof vest, I see,” John Crane says, looking around the garden for the others. Only d’Artagnan’s in view, leaning in the doorway as if bored and waiting for her. “You’ve brought a friend.”

“He’s giving me a ride home,” Constance says, low and conspiratorial, blushing for Mrs Green. 

“Ah,” She says, brightening. “Is he? That sounds wonderful. Is he beautiful?”

“Very,” Constance says, aware that the other officers can hear her. “Very pretty.”

“Good,” Mrs Green says. “And he is a man. Is he one of the better ones?”

“The best sort,” Constance says. “One of a kind.”

“Yes,” Mrs Green says, eyes fixed on Constance. She isn’t moving. Her eyes are full of tears, confusion and fear warring there. 

“Tell me about Nancy, Mrs Green,” Constance says, leaning closer, wrapping a hand around Mrs Green’s arm and pulling her a tiny bit away from Rochefort. There are nurses watching close by, Rochefort can’t protest that. He doesn’t. She catches a glint. 

“Nancy,” Mrs Green says, relaxing. “She’s beautiful, too. Fierce. We’re going to change the world.”

“I bet you are,” Constance says. 

“She can’t sing for shit but she writes songs. Me and Ruth sing them when we go on marches. She makes these beautiful murals. They get called grafiti and lewd and pornography but no, they’re just the beauty of bodies.”

Rochefort looks slightly disgusted. Constance pretends not to notice, laughing a bit and pulling Mrs Green ever so gently, ever so slightly further away. She can see that Rochefort hasn’t got the knife quite pressed into Mrs Green and he’s looking around for others, not keeping too close a watch on Constance. She gets her hand between the knife and the old woman. 

“I bet you guys were all action,” Constance says. 

She waits until d’Artagnan’s on the move, until the armed officers are emerging, then she pulls Mrs Green right against her. She feels sharp pain as the knife buries in her hand but she’s already up and pushing, throwing herself at Rochefort. They go over the arm of the bench and she rolls, up and facing him, crouched low as if she’s ever been in a knife fight before. She has no knife. He has two, now, his teeth bared, eyes cold and hard. Constance has nothing. Except… she still has the car keys. When he lunges she lifts her hand, the key jammed against her palm, and drags it down his face into his eye. He yells in pain and he’s already being pulled away by the officers. She straightens, the world fizzing in a weird way. 

“You’re hurt. Constance,” d’Artagnan says, coming to her, catching up her hands, eyes so wide. 

“Oh,” Constance says, looking at her hand. “It’s not so bad.”

d’Artagnan’s pushing fabric against it. Bandages from somewhere. Then there’s someone else, someone behind her, pulling her back. Something about her arm. 

“You’re lucky, you moved just the right moment,” the other person says. 

“Who are you? I’m in your arms, I should get a name,” Constance says, eliciting laughter. 

“Sylvie Hubert, you’ve met me,” Sylvie says. “You’ve been stabbed in the right place, plenty of medical staff on hand. You’re going to be fine. Your young man’s a bit freaked out.”

“I’m fine,” Constance assure, bending her fingers, the ones that throb and ache. She knows d’Artagnan’s hands are there, holding tight. Keeping her from bleeding to death. Might that happen? It feels like she’ll bleed forever. 

“You are indeed,” Sylvie says, helping her to sit. “This is just a graze. How’s the bleeding, sergeant?”

“Slowing,” d’Artagnan says, sounding far, far away. Constance thinks maybe she’s about to faint but quickly realises that’s on d’Artagnan. He’s the one who’s faint. Constance opens her eyes and sees how pale he is. 

“You’re not afraid of a little blood, are you?” Constance asks, feeling herself gaining equilibrium with the sitting. She laughs at d’Artagnan who pouts at her, which is nice. 

Someone brings her something sugary to drink and she’s brought inside and given a tight bandage, then sent to the hospital. No more arresting dangerous criminals for her tonight. She sits first in the waiting room and waits, then on a trolley bed thing in a cold room in the A&E and waits, and then a nurse comes and cleans her cuts and she waits some more for a higher up nurse to come and do her stitches and gives her a prescription ‘just for tonight and tomorrow, only these few’. It’s a nice kind of pain reliever, some kind of codeine, makes everything nice. She then sits in the waiting room again, waiting for Athos to come fetch her. d’Artagnan had volunteered. She’d let him sit with her for a bit, but they haven’t known one another very long and while he’s very nice his wide-eyed panic and guilt had been a bit much so she’d sent him on his way. She’d had to get Sylvie’s help to get him to go. Sylvie is very nice. 

“Very, very nice,” Constance says, firmly, hand on Porthos’s shoulder. “Oh, hello, when did you get here?”

“Few minutes ago,” Porthos says, crouched in front of her, very warm and friendly. Very firm and stable and real. “Athos and Treville have been drinking whiskey to try and get at this case. Apparently soaking yourself in alcohol helps the brain cells. Who’s very very nice?”

“Sylvie Hubert, Sergeant extraordinair,” Constance says, giggling. “She saved my life. Stopped me bleeding to death in the garden.”

“You were never in danger of that. Unless you ask d’Artagnan. Shall we get you home?”

“Yes please,” Constance says, looping her arms around his neck, knocking his glasses off by accident, and leaning so she can rest her cheek against his shoulder. “The doctor said I am to have someone stay with me tonight, I said Athos could. I didn’t even consider you but you’re better, you can carry me.”

“Yeah I’m not doing that,” Porthos says, laughing at her, retrieving his glasses from the chair she’s sat on. 

He does let her ride in a wheelchair to the car (and thank god he’s not brought her bike) and he sits in the back with her. It takes her a long time to notice that he’s not driving but the car is moving. And then longer to work out why that’s weird because why shouldn’t he drive from the back? And then she realises they’re in a taxi. Luxurious. It feels like a long car journey, the city lights flashing past, busy roads, horns. Feels like they travel through whole continents and reams and reams of time. Eventually they pull up outside her own dear house and Porthos leans forwards to pass the driver something. She tries again to get him to carry her and is again denied and has to walk up the steps. Her house is two floors, broken up into two flats. Hers is the downstairs one with the garden, just a little place but all her own and with the best most wonderful bed. She lies face down in it but Porthos makes her change into pyjamas (not even helping her that much and blushing so so much when she comes out without her top on yet because she can’t work out where the worms her arms have become are meant to be stuffed). 

“You’re just like Athos when he’s drunk,” Porthos mutters, like he’s assuring himself. 

“Do you think I’m sexy?” Constance asks. “I’ve never thought much about it but I’d do you. In a heartbeat.”

“Uh, I’m flattered,” Porthos says, scratching the back of his neck. “But no thanks. I don’t think… no thank you.”

Constance laughs, accepting that, going to lie down in bed. 

“Will you at least sleep with me?” She asks. “For cuddles. I got stabbed by a psychopath today.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” Porthos says, coming to settle on the bed next to her. “I don’t think he is a psychopath. Scarrily normal.”

“Ok,” She says, yawning. “Codeine stuff is good drugs.”

“Yes darling, that it is,” Porthos murmurs, shushing her. She half-hears him on the phone with Athos, soft laughter, feels a warm hand around her shoulder, fingers brushing her cheek when she worries for just a moment. Then she sleeps. 

**


	7. Chapter 7

Porthos sleeps scrunched, sitting up in Constance’s bed, on guard. He got out of that habit a long time ago but he’s surprised how easy it is to fall half into it again. He naps, snatching sleep between vigils, keeping an eye on the surroundings, keeping his glasses on. He could switch to contacts, but he never wears them anymore. He considers trying to get Constance to move to an upstairs flat instead of ground floor with so many window, it would be more secure, but figures that’ll just scare her. Especially if he wakes her up at 3am to persuade her. So he naps again. He gets up at six and goes for a run, meeting three dogs and a few neighbours. He pops by one of said neighbours’ houses to carry her shopping home, her being about ninety years old. She introduces herself as Anna Maguire and shows him photos of her grandkids. He stays to fix a few things after she tells him her son doesn’t come around as much anymore since he got a new girlfriend and things are falling to the wayside. He gets back to Constance’s around eight and makes breakfast. He’s just flipping the last pancake, fat and American because Mrs Maguire gave him maple syrup and a secret recipe, when Constance comes in looking a hungover mess. He gives her coffee, then three pancakes, then painkillers. 

“How did you sleep?” he asks, when they’ve both got more food and more coffee and are settled comfortably. 

“Well. Thanks,” Constance says. “Did I do anything too embarrassing?”

“Kept trying to get me to carry you about,” Porthos says, smiling. “Kissed me once, propositioned me, couldn’t get into your jammies so you flashed me a bit. Um, did some singing in the taxi. You have a good bit of material on how amazing sergeant Hubert is, you should ask her out.”

“Oh god,” Constance says, shutting her eyes. Then they fly back open. “You didn’t say yes, did you? To the proposition? I’m not now dating you?”

“No!” Porthos assures. “You’re lovely and I like you as a friend but, no. Especially when you’re trying to be sexy with no coordination and in your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pyjama bottoms about three sizes too big. Cute, but definitively not sexy.”

“Cute I can live with,” Constance says. “Now, I’m a hero, did you hear?”

“Yeah,” Porthos says. “Stupid thing to have done.”

“She’s old and frail and queer and wonderful, I wasn’t letting that fucker hurt her. Is she ok?”

“She’s very well,” Porthos says, smiling again. “Asking about you, you made an impression. She’d say a very definite yes to a proposition. Though I think sometimes she thinks it was Nancy there.”

“Good. She wasn’t traumatized? She looked scared.”

“She’s unsettled but the staff say she’s going to be ok. She’s rewritten it all as some kind of picaresque novel, with a heroine, a villain, herself. The comte, who snuck around and wore an eye-patch and was going to marry her for her money,” Porthos says. Then stops. “Oh, buggeration.”

“What?” Constance says. 

“You be ok to come to Athos’s today? Or have someone else here? Or I could call d’Artagnan. No I’ll take you to Athos’s, sure to be someone there, what with the captain and all. He’ll have crashed there. Come on, get some things.”

This time he does carry her. It’s great, because the drugs are kicking in again. 

“A little bit wonderful,” she murmurs into his ear, making him laugh.

***

Athos watches Porthos pacing. Constance is lying on the sofa humming, a plate of sliced cheese and clementine segments resting on her stomach. Treville’s sat in the office chair, dragged over. d’Artagnan’s sitting gazing at Constance all anguished. A woman who Athos was just introduced to as sergeant Sylvie Hubert is stood, leaning in the doorway, also watching Porthos as he paces. 

“Why is the CME doing detective work?” Sylvie says. 

“Because our CME is also Porthos,” Treville says. “Spit it out, Vallon.”

“Look, Mrs Green knew things. She knew about John Crane being the comte, somewhere she knew he was Rochefort. She was also fixated on this marriage thing, that he was marrying her. I know people do that sometimes when things are confusing. But she was in love with her husband, with Nancy, with Constance. Not with Rochefort John Crane comte whoever. She heard things, he probably took phonecalls when he was working with her, thought of her as invisible, blind deaf and dumb. What if he did have plans to marry Mrs Green?”

“Marguerite is Mrs Green,” Constance says. “It’s so sad. She used to be the woman in the moon, now she’s just floppy.”

“They’re both Mrs Green,” Treville says with a sigh. “In it together?”

“No,” Athos says. “She didn’t do it.”

“Why are you so sure?” Sylvie Hubert asks, leaning forwards. “Honest question.”

“She has an alibi,” Athos says. “She was set up, you can prove she was set up, Porthos. You put it in your reports, all the things that point to a set up.”

“Doesn’t have an alibi for Richelieu,” Porthos says, stubborn, the tilt of his chin going up just a little. 

“She’s scared,” Constance says, sighing deeply. 

“She hasn’t got the expertise for this,” Athos says. “Neither were unskilled. She isn’t motivated. No, even if her husband has left her everything, she was a rich enough woman on her own and we ruled money out as motivator for her ages ago.”

“Maybe she helped,” Porthos says. 

“You’re basing this on, what? A hunch that Rochefort wanted to marry her?” Athos says. 

“She’s sad, guys!” Constance says, sitting up. “She. Is. Sad.”  
. 

“She’s scared,” d’Artagnan says. “She’s got worse since Marcheaux questioned her.”

“Being pulled in as a suspect in your husband’s murder will do that,” Athos says. 

“Sad,” Constance says, drooping to lie down again. Her plate’s on the floor, cheese scattered. “She’s got no hope. Helpless.”

“Let’s see what she says,” Treville says. “Hubert, go with d’Artagnan. Make her feel safe, make her feel protected.”

“You should take me and Porthos,” Athos says. “I’m not police, that might be an asset. Porthos can fake ‘scary mother fucker’ for five minutes so long as there are no kittens nearby, that might make her feel secure - knowing the tough guy is on your side helps.”

“I can play off that racial bias,” Porthos says, shrugging. “Do it often enough. Big dumb scary guy.”

“You do it beautifully,” Athos says. “No one ever sees you coming.”

“Fine,” Treville says. “Works for me. Sergeant, you’re in charge.”

“Because I’m the only actual cop in this, right?” Sylvie says. “This is gonna be fun. Come on, amateurs.”

Athos follows her obediently. She’s wonderful, he decides as she bounces down the stairs and out into the bar, confiscating d’Artagnan’s car keys on her way through. She’s definitely wonderful. 

***

Porthos watches the violent tremors shake Mrs Green’s hands as she tries to make them tea. He wants to be gentle with her, feels something painful give a sharp tug with every frailty he charts. There are a lot of them. The angle she holds her head, the way she looks at the ground of just over their shoulders, the way she flinches a tiny bit when any of them move toward her. The way her hands shake. The shiver that runs through her when they don’t say anything for a long time. He stays at his post, projecting calm protection. Sylvie waits for them all to have a cup of tea. Porthos’s is resting on the table while he stands, looming, arms crossed, just in Mrs Green’s sight-line. His glasses reflect the light, hiding his eyes. She shifts her chair so she can see him better, pulling her hair away from her face, then letting it fall again.

“Someone said you arrested John Crane?” Mrs Green says, looking across at Sylvie. 

“We just have a few more questions,” Sylvie says, voice gentle with a tiny sliver of apology, as if she’d tell Mrs Green everything but, rules. “This shouldn’t take long.”

“Ok,” Mrs Green says, looking askance at Athos. 

Who is far too hairy and looks disreputable, Porthos would look sideways at him too if he didn’t know so much about Athos. As it is he’s just fond and warm. Athos is just slightly hungover and probably a little disreputable but mostly just lazy. Can’t be arsed to shave. Porthos fixes his face stern and neutral. Athos winks at him making it harder. Mrs Green is examining the table again and doesn’t notice. Porthos sticks his tongue out at Athos, quick as lightning. Sylvie catches them at it then, though, and sends them such a glare. Porthos supposes he should be more of a professional. He shakes his playful mood off and returns his focus to Mrs Green. She’s twisting her hands, very pale, and has her eyes shut. Either she helped and is feeling guilty, or something happened to her at some point. Porthos shifts away from the anger building over that possibility.

“How long have you and Mr Green known John Crane?” Sylvie asks. 

“Four years, since he started helping out more with my mother in law. She’s a wonderful woman but… difficult. At times. Michael loves her of course, and I think that she and his father were polyamorous, he knew and it was an agreement… but she was not around much, she had other lovers, she wasn’t… parts of growing up painful for him. It was a bit of a relief when John Crane was able to make such a good connection with her, it meant it was less pressing for my husband to visit and it turned from a duty to a pleasure. My mother in law wanted to invite him for dinner, so he ate with us sometimes when we visited her and ate there. And then my husband invited him to our house, and, well, here we are,” Mrs Green says. Then, softer, “he’s very charming.”

“Was he more your friend or your husband’s? Or more of an acquaintance?” Sylvie says. 

Mrs Green is quiet for a while. Porthos sits and sips his tea, meeting Sylvie’s eyes and having a silent argument with her. He’s not worked with her often but she’s acted as family liaison enough that, with him being hands-on and gathering his histories for himself sometimes, they know each other well enough for him to read her irritation at him not playing the scary guy, and she can definitely read the stubborn jerk of his chin. He’s doing this. Athos can be scary. 

“We’re not trying to trap you, Marguerite,” Porthos says, shifting his chair so he’s facing her, so he can just about see her face through her hair. He takes off his glasses and lets his voice go soft and lets all his gentleness show through. He learnt so much gentleness from his mother, from Treville when he was around growing up, from the priest at their church, a woman called Alice. From so many people his mother surrounded him with. Marguerite’s biting her lip, caught tight between her teeth now. She looks at him and meets his eyes though, then shuts hers a long moment. “We want to know what happened. To your husband, to Armand Richelieu... To you. You knew him, didn’t you? Richelieu?”

“Yes,” Mrs Green whispers. “I knew him well, through my husband.”

“And on your own account, I think,” Porthos says. Mrs Green swallows. 

“Did you know that Mr John Crane was Rochefort?” Athos asks, getting up and making himself a cup of coffee. Mrs Green looks up at him, surprised enough by his question and his making himself at home to forget to hide her face. 

“No,” She says, open and honest and either she’s a good actor or she really didn’t. 

“But you knew he wasn’t John Crane,” Athos says, turning and leaning on the counter, a statement not a question. And yeah, she knew. Porthos sees it flash across her face before she ducks to hide herself again. 

“How did you know about the affair your husband had with Celine?” Sylvie asks. 

“It wasn’t an affair, she’s a prostitute,” Mrs Green says. “And it wasn’t real. John showed me those texts a week before my husband died. I dismissed it at the time. Then when I got to the house John said he’d picked up the phone and he wouldn’t say a word. He put it into my head that the police would think I did it, because of that motive.”

“Why do you think it wasn’t real?” Sylvie says. 

“I don’t think any of it is real,” Mrs Green whispers, her hand quivering until she catches it in the other and twists them again. She takes a deep breath, looking at Porthos. He gives her a warm, encouraging smile. “I was the one who was unfaithful. Not him. Never him. Armand… I suppose you might say he was a patron. He did things for me, for the business, for my family. He bought things for me. In return I went to parties on his arm, my husband never knew. He didn’t care about the business, he was a quiet man, he thought the best of people. John Crane knew, of course. It isn’t a motive to murder my husband, but John Crane had that on me. That, and he knew that I knew about Celine. Or, about the lie of Celine.”

“You kept quite a lot from the police, didn’t you?” Sylvie says. Then her phone buzzes. She checks it quickly then gets up, face blank, and goes to the hall and out the front, excusing herself. 

“I didn’t mean to,” Mrs Green says. “I’m not a brave person. I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Did John Crane like you?” Porthos asks. 

“Yes, I think so. He thought me beautiful and liked the idea of me, that counts, for him,” Mrs Green says. 

“Did you like him?” Porthos says. 

“No. He’s been hovering, dictating all my answers, telling what to say and what to do. I don’t know where he is but I’m glad he’s gone, if he has been arrested I’m nothing but happy,” Mrs Green says. 

“Did he ever ask to marry you?” Athos asks. 

“Yes,” Mrs Green says. “He was really odd about that. I think… I think he thought I said yes.”

She won’t look at either of them. There seems to have been some sort of dam burst though; she keeps talking, recorded on the device Sylvie brought, set next to her tea. This being an unorthodox interview she’d thought it might be a good idea to record it. 

“When did he ask?” Porthos says. 

“Two weeks ago. He frightened me. After Michael died, John brought it up. Not to ask again, he just assumed it was settled. I didn’t know how to get away. He knew everywhere I have to go, all our houses. He didn’t give me a moment alone to think or to get a hotel, nothing. He took charge, gave me sleeping pills at first, sat with me, stayed with me. He only left to go to work and then he’d make comments, remind me he would be with my mother in law. If anything happened to her… I don’t care much for her, she never hid her dislike of me she doesn’t think I’m brave enough, but my husband loved her. John wrote to my father, did business with him. He knows my little sister. He knows everything,” Mrs Green says. “What can I do?”

“Did you do anything to help him out?” Athos asks. 

“I lied for him. I didn’t kill for him,” Mrs Green says. 

Sylvie comes back and shuts the interview down, packing her things up and pulling them out. They sit in the car out the front and she glares angrily at the house, ignoring Athos and Porthos asking for explanations. 

“Shut up both of you,” She says, eventually. “Marcheaux pulled the plug, we’re not to question her any more.”

“Funny, he dragged her in on not a whole hell of a lot to question her for ages,” Porthos says. 

“Yeah,” Sylvie says. “I don’t know, he’s lead on this though.”

“Could get the captain to override,” Porthos says. 

“It’s not worth it. She didn’t do anything,” Sylvie says. 

“Gut feeling, huh?” Porthos says. 

“Shut up,” Sylvie says, again. 

***

Rochefort doesn’t talk. He doesn’t even ask for a lawyer, he just shrugs and says he doesn’t know, repeatedly. He’s not silent enough for them to use it against him, either. He says just enough not to implicate himself through silence. d’Artagnan watches Marcheaux question him, calm and steady and stern but not particularly pushing, not particularly effective. It gets on every one of d’Artagnan’s nerves so he goes to his desk and rakes over the case on HOLMES, looking for Emile Bonnaire. He looks for connections between Bonnaire and Mrs Green, as per the new theory. It’s a long time before he finds what he’s looking for and when he does it’s not even close to what he expects. The only connection he can find to the Greens is an address. A familiar address. He gathers everything he has, gets as much evidence as he can, and goes to the judge for a warrant. 

It takes the rest of the day and it’s late afternoon before they push open the gate of number 108, d’Artagnan letting armed officers take the lead. CI Allaman is with him, running the op from a safe distance, and sergeant Hubert, from just behind d’Artagnan’s shoulder. There’s also two PCs from Alaman’s team, and detective constable Camille Jones from the murder team that is provisionally assigned by Marcheaux. Mostly it’s been d’Artagnan. They wait after the knock, for long boring minutes. Eventually the door opens and d’Artagnan recognises the same woman as before, leaning there in nothing but a bra and pants. She scowls when she seems them. 

“Is Mendoza here?” d’Artagnan asks, passing over his warrant card. She ignores it. 

“No,” she says.

“Why are you here?” Sergeant Hubert asks, the armed officers relaxing and stepping out of the way, deeming this woman both ‘not Mendoza’ and ‘not a threat’. d’Artagnan wouldn’t bet on the second. 

“I was waiting for him, he didn’t show. He hasn’t paid me yet,” she scowls and crosses her arms. d’Artagnan’s phone buzzes. He ignores it. She arches an eyebrow. 

“What?” d’Artagnan snaps into it, annoyed. 

“A pleasure, Sergeant,” Porthos snaps back. “Charming way to answer. I have something for you, are you at the Mendoza house?” 

“Yes,” d’Artagnan says. Hubert is glaring at him. So is Mendoza’s companion.

“I was just writing up that floater and someone,” Porthos pauses and when he speaks next his voice is raised and angry. “Did not update the system!”

“Uh huh,” d’Artagnan says. “And?”

“It was Mendoza, d’Art,” Porthos says, all frustrated anger. “No one’s gonna answer the door.”

“Well, someone did,” Porthos says. 

“Who?”

“Milady,” d’Artagnan says. “She should come up on a search, I put all my data into the system. He was here when I canvassed, after the first scene.”

“Right,” Porthos says. “I know her, she’s a sex worker, watch out for her. Don’t suppose you can arrest her for anything?” 

“Not really. You’re free to go,” d’Artagnan says, to Milady. “This is now an active crime scene.”

“May I put some clothing on?” she says, already stalking into the house. 

d’Artagnan and Sylvie follow, both crossing their arms and taking careful note of where she goes and what she brings out with her. Sylvie decides to search her bag, making sure she’s only taking her things. That doesn’t go down well but Sylvie doesn’t give a fuck. d’Artagnan’s still on the phone to Porthos so Sylvie calls a greeting before heading deeper into the house. 

It takes them half an hour to find anything. d’Artagnan’s given up, leaning against the back of the house to have a think, and gets to see the constable trip right over and go flying into a grubby, weedy pond. He goes to fish him out, laughing, but pauses and goes to look at what he tripped on instead. It’s a metal ring, and it opens a trap door, and there are stairs. And a cellar. And the smell. He sighs and calls to the rest of the guys. 

**

It’s the same as the others. Porthos is getting tired of the gorey, bloody scenes. He crouches by the body, everything’s been recorded so he turns it. The face is ruined, again. Porthos gently takes out the teeth and sees marks of brutality in the victim’s mouth. He checks over and finds a place where Michael’s tattoo was. A piece of skin has been removed, this time, not disguising with slash marks, just a piece peeled out. Porthos sighs and straightens, taking a weary look at the scene. He’s read up on Bonnaire and d’Artagnan’s gone further and told stories that have made Porthos’s blood boil. Porthos isn’t going to think about how he feels right now. He lets Brujon bag and tag and remove the body, and walks the cellar and house. He already has history and family for Bonnaire, all the information he needs, he’s not sure what he’s looking for. He stops on the landing and turns, stamping down the stairs where he discards his protective clothing and mask and stamps out the front door, nearly ploughing into Constance. He grips her shoulder and turns her, walking her out the gate and beyond the police tape. He takes a radio from a uniform there. 

“CI Allaman,” he says. 

‘Hello Porthos, what can I do you?’ Samara says. 

“Give your people a talking to. No reporters or private investigators on my crime scene,” Porthos says. “No matter how charming and pushy she is.”

‘Constance turned up?’ Samara asks, laughing. ‘Hi Constance.’

“Hey,” Constance says. 

“Don’t let her on my scene,” Porthos growls, throwing the radio at the uniform and escorting Constance to her bike .

“Come on Porthos,” Constance says. 

“Your client is vindicated, she’s not a suspect. Your job is done. Enough,” Porthos says. 

“I want to see it through,” Constance says. 

“Don’t push me. Not today,” Porthos says. Constance holds up her hands and smiles peace, Porthos doesn’t trust her a bit. He sighs and rubs his face. 

“Alright,” Constance says, grudgingly but much more convincingly. “I won’t try and get onto ‘your’ crime scene. I’ll just get it all from d’Artagnan later.”

“Nice,” Porthos says. “You should leave well enough alone, you and Athos.”

He leaves her there, ignoring her muttered ‘grumpy’, and gets a ride back to the office to do work on the reports while Brujon and Clairmont prepare their new body. He calls a business associate of Emile Bonnaire’s, as despicable a person as he was, the only person he can find who might do an id. She does some fake weeping and gasps about coming right over. Brujon comes to get him for the autopsy, Bonnaire’s been pushes ahead of two scheduled victims. It’s long, again, trying to pull skin together, trying to be thorough while all they want is to say ‘it’s obviously the same as the others’. Which is lucky, because otherwise they might have missed the marks of rage. 

This body, like Richelieu, was torn to pieces. The man’s elbow is dislocated. Porthos gets out a preliminary report and starts following up the identificatory marks they’ve found. A fingerprint almost intact, this time. Not necessary a hundred percent accurate, but with DNA samples, an ID, and confirmation that the missing patch of skin is where Bonnaire had a tattoo, it’ll be enough. Porthos gets the print and the confirmation of the tat before he finishes up and adds it to the prelim before uploading it to HOLMES. He still has to do at least one of the pushed-back autopsies before he can leave and he has another report, for a different case, to finish up. 

He finishes late and heads to the pub, choosing a table in the corner instead of at the bar (Constance and d’Artagnan are at the bar, one or the other of them serving). He sits for a while before Athos comes in from the back and spots him. He asks d’Artagnan something and d’Artagnan looks over and brightens, seeming like he might come join Porthos. Athos laughs and says something else and d’Artagnan settles back. Only Athos comes over, with a bottle of scotch, a carton of grape juice, three glasses, and a packet of crisps. 

“I have dinner in the oven, you can eat with me,” Athos says, giving Porthos crisps and juice and pouring himself a generous measure of whiskey. 

“I want that,” Porthos complains, sipping his juice, taking off his glasses to rub at his face. 

“At least eat the crisps first,” Athos says. Porthos shrugs. “You’re angry. Do you want me to leave you here to get drunk?”

“God no, I’d have gone home or to Spoons for that,” Porthos says. Athos’s whole face twitches in surprised, suppressed amusement. It’s blurry without his glasses but it doesn’t change how easily he can read Athos. 

“You go to Whetherspoons to do that?” Athos asks, lips twitching. Porthos glares. 

“It’s cheap.”

“Do you get those fruity, colourful pitchers?” Athos asks, glee hidden beneath a thick layer of sarcasm. Porthos snorts. “OK. Just sit?”

“Yeah.”

They do that until Athos’s phone makes a jarring noise, startling him and making him jump. That makes Porthos smile especially when it takes Athos a confused few minutes to remember that it’s an alarm to remind him about the food in the oven and he leaps up, rushing back upstairs. Porthos takes the juice back to the bar. He takes the scotch and glasses up with him ignoring Constance telling him he has to pay. Athos has not burnt the pasta bake, which is excellent and makes Porthos realise how hungry he is. Athos gives it to him with garlic bread and slices of raw pepper and sweet cherry tomatoes and carrot sticks in a pretty display in the middle of the table, red wine. It’s all good and by the time he’s had thirds Porthos no longer feels like drowning in scotch. Constance has probably taken the charge for it off the card they have for his tab so he tucks it into his briefcase. 

Athos has eaten a lot, he lies on the floor in the bedroom and groans, laughing at himself and, when Porthos joins him lying beside him, at Porthos. Porthos doesn’t care. He likes lying here, looking up at the ceiling, holding Athos’s hand. He’s welcome here, he could, if he felt like it, roll over and lean up to kiss Athos, could lift their joined hands and kiss Athos’s knuckles if he wished. He decides that he does wish it. He does it. Athos smiles, all the way to his eyes, warm and soft and so happy. Porthos breathes out long and loud, relaxing. The case can wait. The world can wait. He’s going to just lie on this floor for a while, indulging himself, breathing with Athos, resting with him. It’s very good. 

***


	8. Chapter 8

Constance is in the bar, doing some work while watching the place for the afternoon, when Porthos comes in with a determined look on his face. He demands she close up and come with him. She considers telling him he’s being a dick and he’s out of favour with her, but decides against it. She’s bored and it’s Athos’s turn to watch the quiet afternoon, he’d foisted it on her for no reason. She shuts the place up and takes the bike, letting Porthos drive. He’s focussed and insistent, which is a good look on him. She’s surprised when they pull up in front of Flea’s. 

“You going to tell me anything?” She asks. 

“I want to know who ‘Milady’ is, and why she’s been on a crime scene and around the corner from a crime scene, and her connection to Mendoza suspect-turned-victim,” Porthos says. 

It’s Charon who answers the door and he’s not particularly pleased to see Porthos, as Porthos hasn’t been in touch for ages. Constance steps aside while the two men wordlessly work out their tension before tusseling into a rough hug. They head into the flat arms around each other. Flea hugs Porthos then tells him off for being a stranger then hugs him again. The smaller Porthos comes out of his bedroom, following the sounds of excitement, and gives a high-pitched, rising, ongoing shriek of pleasure, running at his name-sake’s knees and headbutting him. Porthos lifts him up and listens earnestly to babble, accepts a headbutt of greeting, accepts tiny hands gripping his cheek and beard and hair, and then hands him off to Charon. 

“We’ll be in the kitchen,” he says, tugging Constance and Flea through. 

“What?” Flea says, arms crossed. “You don’t call or see us in a year and now you want something?”

“Yeah I want something,” Porthos says. “Who is Milady?”

“Why? She’s a pimp, was a sex worker herself probably still solicits, real piece of work,” Flea says, lip curling in anger and disgust. “I’ve patched up a few of her girls.”

“Why’s she popping up in my case?”

“I don’t know. Celine knows her,” Flea says. “Or she knows Celine anyway. She knows most of Sarazin’s girls.”

“Right,” Porthos says. “Do you know her? Will she meet you?”

“I know her, no she won’t meet me, won’t meet anyone who has anything to do with the court. What do you need to know?”

“Connections, names, anything,” Porthos says. “Who she works for, who she works with. Anything.”

“I know she has one client who’s super rich,” Flea says. “He buys her lots of things. Some church official. I was keeping tabs for a bit because she took one of the girls we were helping with her. Adele, you could talk to Adele she’d know more.”

“OK,” Porthos says. “You got any questions, Constance?”

“I’m not here to question my friends,” Constance says, taking the high ground even though last time she came here she did come to question Flea. Flea winks at her and scowls at Porthos. 

“Whatever,” Porthos says. “Go talk to the kid for a bit, Constance. I’ll be out with an address, five minutes.”

Constance goes, shrugging. Flea can kick Porthos to the curb without her help if she wants to. 

**

“Porthos,” Flea says. 

“Yeah, I know,” Porthos says. “Sorry I haven’t been around.”

“I was going to ask if you’re alright. This isn’t your job, is it?” Flea says. He’s surprised, but he shouldn’t be. She always knew him too well for their peace of mind. “I know things just got away from you, we’re not close anymore, that’s fine. People drift apart. I like to think we’ll come together again someday.”

“Charon and me have some things to work out,” Porthos says. “I don’t want to do that.”

“I know that too,” Flea says. “We’ll be here. Pip misses you, though, just so that you know.”

“Emotional blackmail. I appreciate you a lot, Flea,” Porthos says. She comes close enough for him to embrace her. “Not my job no. I’m going vigilante.”

“You’re so stupid sometimes,” Flea says, sighing. “Ok, but don’t do anything too dumb.”

“Yeah yeah,” he says. “I’m an idiot, I know. Love you too. What’s that address, then?”

Porthos jr cries a lot when he hears Porthos isn’t staying. Porthos feels bad about that, he promises to visit soon and bring a present which assuages the little monster. He’ll just have to talk to Charon. He’s avoided it this long, he’s not sure Charon even knows there’s anything wrong. Charon hasn’t ever brought up the time he gave Porthos a black eye. Or the time he accused Porthos of sleeping with Flea. Those are things they should talk about. Porthos leaves Charon his number and hugs him before leaving. Porthos isn’t surprised to find that Adele’s address is Ninon Larocque's address, Ninon’s always giving people shelter when they need it. He is surprised when they arrive and find her not a house-guest but Ninon’s partner. He supposes he shouldn’t be that surprised. She invites them into the kitchen and makes them tea. He and Constance wait until they’re sat at the table, all of them with mugs, before starting. 

“Flea said you might be able to tell us more about Milady,” Constance says. “We understand that it might be a difficult topic, we’re not going to push. We’re also not cops. Or, Porthos is but he’s not the sort who arrest you.”

Porthos can and does arrest people but he keeps quiet and lets Constance extoll his doctorly credentials. Adele gives him an amused look; she knows more about his job than Constance. He shrugs. 

“I promise I won’t arrest you,” he says, interrupting Constance mid-stream. She doesn’t seem to mind, just sitting back a little bit, observing Adele. 

“What kind of promise is yours, monsieur?” Adele asks, her voice musical and intimate. She looks only at Porthos, head tipped a bit to the side. He gives her a warm smile.

“I keep my word,” He says. “I am, apparently, an idiot about it. According to Flea, that is.”

“I like Flea,” Adele says. “Ok, I’ll answer your questions. Milady?”

“Yeah,” Porthos says. “Flea said you might know about clients of hers?”

“She took me with her a few times to her big client, he liked me,” Adele says. “Really rich. I nearly went for it, too, but I like a little more protection with stuff like that. Richelieu was the name.”

Porthos ignores his inward reaction to the name and just grunts, noting it down. Constance doesn’t have such a good poker face but Adele’s still focussed on Porthos. She’s flirting with him, he realises. It’s subtle, body language and tone, but it’s there. He smiles, pleased by the attention. He gets more details about Milady from her but no other names that ring a bell. He takes note of everything to enter it into HOLMES in case it pops. Constance asks about Mendoza before they leave, and Porthos rolls his eyes at Adele in commiseration for being asked daft questions. She laughs at him and rests a hand against his cheek. 

“I have enjoyed being played by the two of you,” She says. “We should do it again some time. I don’t know Mendoza. I know there was a Spanish guy who did things for Milady.”

“Thanks,” Porthos says. “It was nice meeting you.”

He gently disengages himself from her and he and Constance head out. She nudges him and he pinches her but neither of them look back. Best not to get entangled with people on a case, that’s all kinds of a mess waiting to happen. He climbs onto the pillion of the bike, letting her drive this time. He feels more relaxed, now. 

“You’d better call d’Artagnan,” Porthos says. “I’m the one out of my lane, this time.”

“Right. Are we keeping secrets from him?” Constance asks, pulling out her phone. 

“Nah, just butter him up,” Porthos says. “Do a sexy voice or something.”

She thwacks him with the helmet, for that, gently, which makes him yell. She gives him a smug look then blocks and ear, talking to d’Artagnan. She does do some buttering up, her warm tone and giggle are probably not on purpose though. Porthos waits, thinking about Athos. 

**

Flea sets up a meeting for Constance with Ninon, Simone, and Adele at the court, they have the nice meeting room and fancy types of tea and they sit for an hour, making a plan. 

“Milady’s bad,” Ninon says. “I’ve dealt with her a couple of times. Will this get her off my streets?”

“It might,” Constance says. “We’re not sure. d’Artagnan’s gonna do his best but his DI’s a bit of a dick and being weird about the case, and we don’t really know how she’s involved.” 

“d’Artagnan’s the policeman?” Flea asks. None of them look happy about that. 

“He’s trans. He says it’s ok to tell you that, he thinks it’ll help,” Constance says, rolling her eyes. “He’s like ‘I know trans guys are still guys and we pick up all kinds of toxic masculinity stuff but I think it might make a difference because when I was growing up I kinda experienced stuff too’.”

“It make a bit of a difference,” Adele says, brow furrowed. “Not that trans guys are not sometimes as full of misogyny and once we pass we pretty much experience the same privilege or not as cis people.”

“Well anyway,” Constance says. “That aside, he’s great on feminism and intersectionality and I think he’s going to be good on this. He’s a good cop. Porthos is teaching him to be part of the solution not part of the shitty bits of the institutiton.”

“Ok, we’ll use him to get her arrested if we can,” Ninon says. “If we all agree? Simone? You have more reason than the rest of us to be on the no-cops wagon.”

“I’m good with using him,” Simone says, grinning. “It’s fine with me. We work with police at the court all the time, we could vette him like we do with the ones we try and make ties with. I’ll trust Connie on it, though.”

“Done,” Flea says. “So if we can get her, we’ll do that.”

“Great, no need for vigilante superhero work today,” Ninon says. “I’ll put my spandex away for another day.”

They finish planning and then sit for a while talking about other things. It’s nice to spend time with women, Constance has been working with Athos and d’Artagnan, and Porthos when he allows it, and while they’re all great none of them are women. She makes plans with Flea afterwards and promises next time they’ll do something unrelated to any cases. Flea promises to leave Charon home but she’ll bring Porthos jr, so they agree to go to the softplay on Sunday afternoon. Adele and Constance go to scope out the back room at the Coach and Horses pub where Adele’s asked Milady to meet. They made up a rich client who Adele wants backup with. 

“How’s Porthos?” Adele asks, butt propped on the table while Constance sets up some of the tiny recorders Athos bought for way too much money a bit ago. He’d been drunk at the time. They’ve never used them. 

“He’s fine,” Constance says, grinning. “You want me to give him your number?”

“Nah,” Adele says. “He seemed way too professional to take me up on it.”

“That’s not a lie,” Constance says. “His professionalism is a bloody nuisance, sometimes, he’s always kicking me off crime scenes.”

“Are you too professional to take my number?” Adele asks, eyes on Constance’s bum as she climbs up onto a chair to set up the recording device on the cornice, out of sight. Constance hadn’t expected that. She considers. 

“I dunno. I haven’t really made anything official with d’Artagnan but I think we’re gonna properly date, and I don’t know if he’s poly. I assume you are? Because Ninon’s sort of a friend,” Constance says. 

“Yeah,” Adele says. “She’s great and I love her to bits but she only wants a girlfriend five months out of twelve, half the time she lives in a different house and then even when she is home she sometimes spends her life in the office and sleeps in the spare room.”

“I’ll talk to d’Artagnan,” Constance says. “I’m not against going for a drink, once this case is over, seeing where things go.”

“The sex work isn’t a problem?”

“Nope,” Constance says. “Ok I’m set. Let’s check out exits and let the bar staff know, we can use d’Artagnan to make it semi-official.”

Once they’re set they go their separate ways until this evening, Constance back to the office to trawl through yet more data relating to Rochefort. She’s been doing this for a while, whenever she has a chance. So far she’s found a drivers licence that’s his photo but a different name. She follows that thread and has a bit of luck; she finally finds Rochefort’s first name. Ottery St John. She finds his birth date, too. She finds it because Rochefort was at the point he had the fake licence paying someone’s rent. She only finds that by following a bunch of different threads. Eventually though up pops an arrest record for one Ottery St John Rochefort. She calls d’Artagnan. 

She heads back from to the Coach and Horses a little early and gets coffee and sits, going through her phone to see what she’s got so far on Milady. Adele shows up next, and then Milady. They haven’t really done a plan on how to play this, they did come up with some ideas but in the end they decided to just see where it seemed to be going. They know Milady likes to be in charge so Adele and Constance let her take the lead. They know Milady is manipulative, they plan to give in to it but not give up any information. They do give up the name Richelieu, Adele will be mentioning his name idly. They know Milady was working with Mendoza so they want to see if that comes up but they’re not going to use his name. They have some ideas, but mostly they’re just going to play it by ear. If she turns up. 

She does. Half an hour late, sweeping into the room, two bar-staff at her back bringing a drink full of fruit and her handbag and jacket. She waits for them to arrange her stuff and pull out the chair for her before sitting. She pulls out her phone and a notebook and pen, then looks up. Constance and Adele sit and wait, watching the palaver. 

“I’m recording this,” she says. “I always record it when I meet clients.”

“That’s fine,” Adele says. 

“And who is this?” Milady says, pointing a pen at Constance.

“He’s looking for two girls,” Adele says, which they also agreed. Constance wasn’t sure about it but she decided it was just prejudice. She nods, now. 

“Name?” Milady says. 

“Jay,” Constance says, giving the name of one of the newer women who uses the court. It won’t hold long but long enough for this. 

“Good. What are you looking for?”

“My client is looking for something long-term and I want help setting that up,” Adele says. 

She gives Milady Athos’s details, which was Constance’s idea (she checked with him first that he was ok with it. Porthos had found the whole thing hilarious, Constance heard him cackling in the background). He’s not rich but his family is and he technically has a lot of inheritance which is just sitting there. In reality a lot of it is caught up in funds and charities and what’s left is earmarked for similar in the future. He looks rich is the thing, if Milady goes digging. She does, while they sit there giving her details she goes through her phone, doing a google search and then going a bit deeper. She also, Constance notices, sends an email. A reply comes back quickly and Constance sees a small tick going next to the name ‘Jay’ in the notebook. They should probably find out who that contact is and put a stop to it. 

“Ok,” Milady says. “That’s all fine. Tell me more about the job.”

Adele does that, making it convincing. She, Flea and Simone came up with the details, telling stories about past, anonymous clients and laughing a lot. It’s detailed, the theory being that the more detailed the job the more sound it is to bring in someone to set up a deal and the more focussed Milady will be on that and less on anything else. Adele’s trying to describe a scenario close to something that might have included Marguerite, guessing at things from what Marguerite told them and form their collective experience. Hopefully something will hit. Adele’s phone, sat on the table, buzzes and lights up with a notification, the message appearing on the lock-screen. It’s from Simone but her name’s been changed in Constance’s phone to ‘Marguerite’. Milady notices and her eyes narrow. 

“Just a girl I worked with,” Adele says, checking the screen, checking it. “I met her through you, actually. Remember that Richelieu job you had me on?”

Milady’s face goes dark and her eyes blaze for a moment before she asserts control over herself going cold and calm. 

“No,” She says. “I don’t remember a name. You should edit your contacts, if I’m going to be running you for this job I want things to go smoothly, there’s no need to give the client information he doesn’t need. I won’t have my reputation ruined by incompetent stupidity.”

There’s a sharp bite to her words and she reaches over and slaps Adele, short and sharp across the cheek with the back of her hand, rings leaving red marks. Constance breathes out long and slow. 

“And if you’re working for me you need to lose that woman’s contact. She’s trouble. I ran her briefly, I set her up with a good client but she was no good,” Milady says. “I’m not making that mistake again.”

Adele nods, tears in her eyes that look real. Constance breathes in long and slow. She knows how to fight, she could take this arsehole. Not the plan, not the plan, not the plan. Instead she reaches under the table and takes Adele’s hand, lowering her head like Adele. 

“I’m glad we understand each other,” Milady says. “Athos de la Fere really wants all of this?”

Adele nods. Milady shrugs and reaches into her purse, pulling out a cigarette case and holder, insert a cigarette and lighting up, crossing her legs. Constance gets a look at Adele, who winks at her which is reassuring. They’ve got this. They hadn’t expected the violence but it’s not exactly unexpected either. Constance relaxes. 

“When did you run Marguerite?” She whispers. “Only she’s been nice to me.”

“What? You think people change?” Milady gives a harsh laugh, but shrugs elegantly. “It was 2006.”

“That’s not very precise,” Constance mutters. 

“Excuse me?” Milady says. “Am I giving you details so you can look me up and, what? Asses my work? Very well, I like competence, that’s probably a good idea. I suppose Marguerite high-and-mighty hasn’t given me rave reviews. I set her up with a client at the winter ball thrown by the Mayor of London in 2006, the event is for business people, I found good business there usually. Precise enough?”

“Yes,” Constance says. 

“I’ll do this,” Milady says. “For a fee. I’ll do the set-up and introductions, write up an agreement. I’m not going to be around for more than another month though so after that you’re on your own. The fee will be twenty-five percent paid up-front before I do the work. If you don’t pay me in time to get it all sorted before I’m out, that’s your fault.”

She’s brought a contract with her that she has them both sign and then she grills Adele for more information on the job. They’re there for a further forty minutes, Constance is sure it’s just a power-play and not necessary. Milady keeps asking them more questions and shifting the focus onto them, keeps making little digs about their competence. She looks them up and down every now and then and makes notes. She gives them both a dress-code and a list of shops they can use. She says it’s part of what she does, what she promises to the client. She gives Constance the name and address of a gym which makes her indignant but she hides that and makes herself blush instead. Finally Milady sits back. 

“I’m getting out,” She says, satisfied. “Pay me by tomorrow and I’ll do this, then I’m gone. I’ve had enough of living in the gutter, I’ve made my money.”

With that she stubs her cigarette out on the table and sweeps out. Constance slumps in her chair, puffing air out, and turns to Adele. She winces seeing two red marks from Milady’s rings coming up on Adele’s cheek, she goes to get ice and to promise the staff she’ll settle about the table, the cigarette smoke inside, and the deference they showed Milady. All she’d asked was that they make sure to be polite, she hadn’t expected the entourage or the free drink they apparently gave her. Well, it doesn’t matter, she’ll put it as a business expense and she and Athos can work it out later. They’ll probably add it to Marguerite’s fee. She sees to Adele’s cheek and apologises profusely about the slap, which makes Adele laugh.

“I can take it. I’d have decked her if we weren’t playing this game, but don’t worry it wasn’t as hard as it looked,” Adele says. “God, if we can get her for this, though. I feel awful after that.”

“Me too,” Constance says. “Come on, let me gather those bugs and I’ll walk you up to the court, drop you off with Ninon.”

“That would be lovely.”

Constance does as promised then texts d’Artagnan. He says she can come over so she goes and curls up on the sofa with him to watch Netflix, letting him fuss over her and cuddle with her. It’s comforting to have someone to come to, for this. He makes her pasta bake as well, which is wonderful. He doesn’t ask her questions, just lets her tell him what she wants to. The hollow feeling in her chest that Milady left slowly closes over and goes away. 

**


	9. Chapter 9

“So what happened?” Porthos asks Constance. 

They’re sat in the church-hall out at Croyden, him and Constance drinking tea while Aramis, Celine and Athos set up for some family thing. Porthos is not helping because he has been told by his mother that he looks tired and is not to do a thing (she’s currently at home in her office writing up an angry article about access problems in higher education, her girlfriend has gone to buy juice for this event thing). Constance is not helping because she’s just had the stitches out of her hand and Aramis had been horrified by her ‘war wound’ and been over-solicitous about it. They’re talking about the case, Constance has been going through everything with d’Artagnan piecing it together. 

“Richelieu ran a sort of mostly-legal empire,” Constance says. “He had a whole load of things going, officially he was a ‘consultant’. You know, general kind of all-powerful businessman. Like Marguirite says her involvement with him was as an escort. He employed Milady for all kinds of things, including corporate espionage, general skullduggery, anything he wanted doing without his knowledge. Rochefort worked for him, too, after he got out of the army, officially as a security consultant. Emile Bonnaire was just someone Richelieu had investments with, Richelieu half-ran Bonnaire’s business, unofficially, from what I can see. Anyway, Rochefort got caught on Richelieu’s less than legal business and Richelieu didn’t do anything, just washed his hands of the mess.”

“How did you find that out?”

“I’ve been going over and over Rochefort, looking for things, I found a driving licence with his picture and through that an address and then a credit card registered for a nearby pizza place for the licence ID, and from there did some digging at the bank and found that he was paying the bills of a guy called…” Constance flicks through her notebook, pausing to admire the garish wound as she does. Porthos smiles a little at that. She’s so cynical and hardened in some ways and in others she’s just so utterrably… innocent isn’t the right word, she just still joys in the world around her and finds the oddest things fantastic. Like having a gash across her hand. “Here we go. He was paying Vargas’s bills and that was in his own name, which gave me more info, first name, date of birth, where he lived, and then I could find his arrest history. Also found his army records, he was dishonourably discharged for a brutal attack on a fellow soldier.”

“Nice. He sounds wonderful,” Porthos says, watching Athos. He has to tip his head up and to the side a bit to get the right part of the varifocal lens in his glasses … so that he can better focus on Athos’s butt.

He’s trying to hang up a sign but he’s not tall enough and he’s up on tiptoes, arms stretched up, his open shirt falling off his shoulders. He took his shoes off about half an hour ago complaining they were too smart and pinched, they’re sat beside Porthos now all shiny. Athos’s hair is coming out of his hair tie, too. He looks very cute. Porthos’s heart feels too big for him. 

“Yeah, he’s a real piece of work. Anyway, Rochefort dropped off the radar, the arrest warrant has expired but d’Artagnan says he can get that sorted out, he’s gone to liaise with the Oxfordshire police. I think Vargas has something to do with Rochefort going off the radar, I might go dig him up. Rochefort at some point seems to have decided that he needs to ‘save’ Marguerite, we’re not sure about when or why or where he even saw her, probably something to do with Richelieu. At some point he also becomes John Crane, we think that was three years ago, I can’t find a death certificate or anything on Crane though, he had no family and nothing very much online, just a facebook page with nothing on it, a few emails about work. I know that he worked in a hospital in Cardiff but I sent them an email with Rochefort’s picture and that was him too, before that there’s nothing I’ve found yet.”

“And then he just… kills Bonnaire, Richelieu and Michael Green?” Porthos asks. 

“He planned it pretty well. Michael first, while he’s on a business trip. Of course Michael Green didn’t really have much to do with the business, on his trips he’d go to the office for an hour, maybe, have a look around, meet some people. Then he’d usually just wander around whatever city he was in and probably buy some art for his mother. No one thought twice when he didn’t show up, there wasn’t any need to report it anywhere or let anyone know. It was more than a day or two, he often just bailed on those and didn’t usually tell anyone. Rochefort, I assume, asked to meet him somewhere. I think, by the way, that both Michael Green and Rochefort worked for Richelieu in special forces but neither of them worked with the other, or if they did it was brief, because Michael Green didn’t ever recognise Crane as Rochefort.”

“Oh yeah, I hadn’t even thought of that,” Porthos says. Athos has gone to get a chair and is balanced on it, looking precarious. It’s adorable. 

“Lured Michael Green to that house, killed him, probably didn’t even notice Celine,” Constance says. “Then Richelieu was next, lured to the Greens’ house, probably using Marguerite's phone. Which has gone missing from evidence, CSI took it and it was never returned to her but it’s not among the evidence.”

“I’ll follow that up, d’Artagnan should’ve told me I can do that,” Porthos says. Athos is done with the acrobatics and has noticed Porthos watching him, he’s stood, arms crossed, scowling at Porthos. Porthos waves. 

“Stop being distracted,” Constance complains. “If we find the phone that’d be great. However he did it, he lured Richelieu to the Greens’ house.”

“He has an alibi.”

“Yeah. I think he had Milady do it. I have no proof, but the sheer anger in the attack is different from the others, right?” 

“Right,” Porthos says. “Why would Milady be angry with him?”

“Ah, see, there’s the rub.I don’t know. She was, though. When I met with her and Adele I had Adele let the name slip and you could see it, Milady was so angry,” Constance says. “She could have done that I’m almost certain.”

“And Bonnaire was last?”

“No, Mendozza was next, I think that was Milady. Mendozza did things for Milady, I think she was trying to cut off anything that tied her to Richelieu, she had a lot to say about starting over, a new life. She was totally a homophobic arsehole by the way, she’s a piece of work too. Everyone in this case is despicable. Mendozza was also right there for the first scene, remember, d’Artagnan canvassed them. Milady probably went to his afterward. I think Mendozza was watching the Greens. I found Richelieu’s cloud storage and he had encrypted files on what looks like everyone he ever worked with. They’re all named with different codes I haven’t found one on Michael yet, d’Artagnan told me to let the police techs do it and to sit back and relax but I’m a go getter. I’m still looking.”

“So she pushes Mendozza in a river,” Porthos says. “Bonnaire’s body also looked like a lot of anger went into it.”

“Yeah, the only time Milady would admit to meeting Marguerite was at an event with Richelieu, she said he had a sex worked he wanted her to ‘give’ to Bonnaire. She acted as pimp and set it up between Marguerite and Bonnaire, and Rochefort was at that event. He probably saw Milady setting it up,” Constance says. “d’Artagnan hasn’t got Rochefort talking about anything about the case but he has got him to go off about sex work, it makes him pretty angry, he talks about saving women from exploitation and sin.”

“Uh huh,” Porthos says. “Lovely.”

“Yeah,” Constance says. “We’re gonna get them both, just got to input everything into HOLMES and gather as much evidence as possible.”

“I’ll follow up on the phone,” Porthos says, smiling as Athos finishes whatever he was doing after the sign hanging and glaring at Porthos. He’s coming over, his socks slipping a bit on the floor. 

“Lucy brought the juice then pissed off to your mum’s,” Athos says, bending to kiss Porthos’s head. “She said you have to go eat lunch there to assuage Marie-Cessette. Can I come?”

“Sure,” Porthos says. “Thanks, Constance, I’ll do the… phone. Yep. Right. See you later.”

They head to his mum’s but only Lucy is there, she tells them that Marie-Cessette’s still in the office fighting against education systems and they’ll have to get on with lunch without her until she decides she’s done with that. She joins them halfway through and she’s too busy having an intellectual conversation about ableism with Lucy to give Porthos grief about working too hard. 

**

Christoph, a contact d’Artagnan has in the Oxfordshire PD, has hooked him up with the detective from Rochefort’s case. DI Catherine Savoy has plenty to say on the matter. She’s pissed that it took them so long to get him for anything, she tells d’Artagnan that Rochefort was on their radar for years, never quite the wrong side of the law or, when he was, with an alibi, or they’d had no evidence. When they finally had something on him she’d personally gone straight over to his flat but he’d already been gone. 

“Someone tipped him off,” she says, leaning her elbows on the wobbly table at Jimbob’s, a sandwich shop she’s brought him too. “There’s no way he’d know otherwise. No way.”

“Did you investigate?” d’Artagnan checks. 

“Of course. I was working with a small team, I was a DC then, there was supposed to be a small number of people who knew but the uniform sergeant had let something slip and it was all over the station. Everyone knew. It wasn’t very high profile so no one really cared, but everyone knew.”

“You never found out who told him?” 

“No, and he vanished off the face of the earth. I found him a bit later, paying rent for someone, but they were both gone by the time I’d got through the red tape of a cold case with a lapsed warrant,” DI Savoy says. “there was nothing I could do. And, to be honest, I kept him in the back of my mind but he was a nuisance – him being gone was a good thing. He hadn’t done anything too heinous so it wasn’t like there was any push.”

“He killed three people, we think,” d’Artagnan says. He’s angry but he keeps his tone mild. “Used a knife. Took most of their skin off. Tore the teeth out of someone’s mouth.”

“He was always violent,” DI Savoy says, unflustered. She shrugs. “I’ll send you a copy of all our files, if you like.”

“Yes please. Do you have unofficial notes? From when you didn’t have enough on him but had him on your radar?” 

“I’ll give you whatever I have,” DI Savoy says. 

d'Artagnan returns from Oxford dispirited. He hasn’t learnt much. He tells Constance about the rent thing but she already knew. He has her bring her laptop and notes to his desk at the station and he updates HOLMES with the information she has. Together they scrawl through it, padding out the node on Milady, inputting every detail. 

“She hasn’t got alibis, has she?” d’Artagnan checks, scrolling. “Oh. Here. She was asked. She has one for Michael but that’s it.”

“Do we have anything on her that we can arrest her for?” Constance asks. “Anything at all?”

“I’ve got footage from near the river, here, one of the uniforms uploaded it. They think this is where Mendoza went in, it’s a private camera on a house it’s not obvious, might have been missed. Good spot,” d’Artagnan says, rambling as he brings it up. 

They watch for a while. It’s time-stampted two twenty AM when two figures appear, one staggering, held up by the smaller, slighter one. They watch, breath held, as the slighter figure pitches the other into the river. 

“She stands and has a smoke,” Constance says, a little appalled. 

“Could be anyone,” d’Artagnan says. 

The figure, though, comes toward the camera afterwards instead of going back the way she came. She passes close enough for them to get a shadowy, grainy face. 

“It’s her,” Constance says. 

“Not good enough for an ID, but yeah,” d’Artagnan says. 

He marks it and they go on through the file. They find a report from the uniform who interviewed her after they found her in Mendoza’s house (the second time) and she gives an alibi for Richelieu’s death. Casually dropping in that she was with another client earlier, the same client she’d been with on the day Richelieu died. He had the same appointment every time, between twelve and two. An appointment for having his nails done, of course. The uniform got a name. No one’s followed up but they’ve traced him and there’s a phone number. It’s a matter of ten minutes to ring and assure him that no, they don’t care why he gets his nails done, they just want to know who with and when. Not on the date of Richelieu’s death. They carry on. 

**

“They’ve got a warrant for arresting Milady,” Athos says, sliding into Porthos’s office. It’s late but Porthos is still there, working on reports. His eyes look tired behind his glasses, he’s got a red mark from wearing them for so long today Athos can tell.

“Good,” Porthos says. 

“Did you find the stray phone?” Athos asks, taking a seat. “Do you have food? d'Artagnan wants to know. About the phone. I want to know about the food.”

“And if I haven’t got food will you offer me some?” 

“No.”

Porthos tosses him an apple and goes back to his reports. He has found the phone, he played a hunch and went to talk to evidence, digging out old Florian who still works down there some mornings. Not many people know that Florian hangs out, shuffling around doing bits of work, or mostly sitting having tea just out of sight. He told Porthos (over tea) that Marcheaux came and took the phone out of evidence and that there’s no record of that. He told Porthos that Jacob was on the desk that day, Jacob who’s Marcheaux’s mate. Porthos doesn’t like that, not at all. He’s held back from marking it as missing, and told Florian to do the same. 

“And the phone?” Athos prods.

“I’m working late, if you were looking to have dinner with me,” Porthos says. “I could come over after. But not to be grilled for case details you want.”

“Porthos,” Athos says, frowning. “Ok, ok. I won’t ask you anything.”

“Good,” Porthos says. Then he sighs and finally looks up at Athos. “Tell d’Art I’m working on it.”

“Right,” Athos says. He’s a little flushed and looks awkward and unsure. “And you’ll come over later?”

“Yeah, I’d like to,” Porthos says. Athos flushes a little darker but smiles a tiny bit, looking up shyly. Porthos smiles back. 

“Ok. Maybe in the future we can talk about work. Boundaries and awkward shit like that,” Athos says. 

“You’re offering to communicate? Of your own free will? Are you sick?” Porthos says. 

Athos throws the apple, uneaten, at his head for that. Porthos catches it and eats it himself, it’s a good apple. He leaves Porthos to it and Porthos closes the report he was working on and goes back to HOLMES. He’s combing through the case. Nothing big is missing but there are small things. He can be most sure about his own department so he carefully tracks down all his evidence, everything he put into HOLMES, every action that he set up, every thread he’s run down. He backs everything up on his work computer and then onto an external drive which he locks into his filing cabinet. Then he gets out his personal laptop and starts an offline database. His laptop’s not linked to anything, all sharing options are off, and he uses his phone as a hot-spot so he’s not on the wifi. It’s a tiny bit paranoid. 

Porthos starts with Meung Imports, trawling through the online, easily accessible stuff first but quickly moving on to reports that were filed but that no one looks at, things that are available because it’s law not because anyone ever looks at them, and picks through. He has a list of aliases, addresses, phone numbers, and jobs and locations that Constance made into a spreadsheet. He also has he detailed time-line of where and who Rochefort was up until becoming Mrs Green sn’s nurse. He sets up a search to run in the background comparing the two sets of data - Constance’s and Meung Imports. While that runs he gathers his own set of data, using Facebook, the met database, a contact in HR, old Florian and Serge, a street sargeant who knows everything that goes on. He gathers everything he can get on Marcheaux since he transferred to the MET five years ago. He sets up a second search, comparing the new data to Meung Imports and Constance’s stuff.

Once he’s got those running he opens his address book. He has most of these contacts on his phone but he like to have a physical diary. He’s had this one since he was in the army and by now it’s full of crossings out, inserted pages, envelopes kept for addresses. The cover’s coming off and the binding’s failing, it’s all held together with rubber bands. Porthos starts with ‘A’ and works his way through, calling his police contacts in every city that’s a possibility and then some in the countryside. He finds six places Marcheaux has worked before. He could have pulled this off the system but, firstly, that might raise flags and, secondly, this way he gets the gossip as well as the facts. Which is what he wants. He builds up a timeline of where/when, filling in gaps as he goes, comparing it with the one Constance made up for Rochefort. Most of the places Marcheaux’s worked there have been complaints about him. At least a handful of HR reports, a lot of bad blood, but somehow still mostly well liked and always there’s a ‘the high ups liked him’. The thing that springs out, when compared to Rochefort, is Oxford. Porthos follows up a different hunch, first. He calls Treville. 

“Hi, you rang my private number is this about the dinner I owe you?” Treville asks, picking up quickly. “You’ve caught me at a good time, I’m on lunch. And we’ve got that Milady for this awful case, we’ll be wrapping things up soon.”

“Yes,” Porthos says. “Dinner, perfect, exactly what I was calling about. Send me a few dates and we’ll coordinate diaries. You owe me somewhere nice, I did a couple of favours for you on this one. Speaking of favours I’ve been meaning to ask you one. You know you always say that Marcheaux is protected by the brass, could you be any more specific? Who are his friends?”

Treville gives him, a little grudgingly, three names. He asks a lot of questions that Porthos ignores. 

“Thanks,” Porthos says, cutting of Treville in the middle of another question. “It’s nothing at all, I swear, I’m looking for backing on a new project and I really want to avoid working with him again.”

Treville half buys it. Porthos ends the call with another reminder that Treville owes him dinner at a nice place and then reminds Treville that he also owes Porthos money for the last time Treville made the mistake of playing cards with him, which is a nice distraction. Porthos hangs up on Treville’s disparaging remarks about his cheating and how it doesn’t count if Porthos cheats (it does count, Porthos didn’t cheat)... (porthos didn’t get caught cheating). He pulls up the three names Treville just gave him. 

HOLMES is full of info on Richelieu. Porthos is a hundred percent certain there are gaps and when he goes looking he finds those gaps - connections between Richelieu and the men who back Marcheaux. Porthos adds it to his nice new database and calls back a few contacts. Some of his friends are fairly high up in the hierarchy, these days, and it’s not hard to find out who exactly has been protecting Marcheaux. He carefully ties them to Richelieu. Then, when he can’t find ties to Richelieu, he does a comparison and search with his ‘Rochefort’ data and leaves that running. Then he follows up on Oxford. It takes ten minutes for him to get hold of the DI d’Artagnan spoke to but then it’s only a few seconds to get the answers he needs. 

His first search results are beginning to come in, by then, throwing up nice little flags all over Emile Bonnaire’s business. Porthos collates everything into his database while the searches finish, then adds the results, then he encrypts everything, password protects everything, and shuts his laptop down. He puts it in his briefcase along with the work he’ll need to do at home tonight to make up for this time spent and then he locks that. Then he goes to Athos’s. He goes around the back, avoiding the pub. Athos is home, cooking in the little kitchen with an apron tied around his waist and his hair pulled back, listening to blues so old the scratches are still on. Porthos sets his briefcase down in the bedroom, strips out of his work clothes, and goes to wrap himself around Athos and rest against his strong shoulder, breathing in the warm smell of whatever he’s making. 

“It’s some kind of chickpea mess,” Athos says. “I put a garlic baguette in the oven just seconds before you got here, made it extra garlic-y and plenty of butter the way you like.”

Porthos hums in gratitude and kisses Athos’s neck. The blues switches to Tom Waits and Athos grins, tipping his head back to get a look at Porthos and Porthos catches his mouth in a kiss. It’s a good evening, sitting quietly in the kitchen with the music on, too late for conversation, eating good food. Athos has made baked apples for afters which Porthos loves. They remind him of his childhood, of his Mum back when they couldn’t really afford desert but every autumn they’d get the cooking apples as they became cheap and make crumbles, baked apples, apple sauce. Sweet and good and she’d always just loved him so much. Baked apples is being allowed to stay up late, is sitting at the little table with the plastic table-cloth, legs swinging, listening to his Mum and her girlfriend or boyfriend of the time talking over his head with glasses of wine. They’re hearing stories of selkies as the winter closes in. They’re standing on a chair while his Mum chops or cores the apples and laying them out on trays, in pans, in oven dishes, filling them with cinnamon and honey and raisins and blackberries from the fields nearby, laying them out in circles and layers, stirring the hot pan very carefully. 

“I love you,” Porthos tells Athos, holding his hand when they’re done. Athos smiles and tops up his wine-glass and Porthos’s. 

They lie on the bed, after, hands still knit. Athos taps away at his phone for a while, Porthos takes off his glasses he’s a hundred and sixty percent done today even though it’s early. He does not need glasses. Ever again. He drifts, enjoying being close, enjoying the intimacy. Athos finally sets the phone aside with an audiobook playing and rolls over, up on an elbow to contemplate Porthos, lips turned just a little up at the corners. 

**

It’s not very dramatic, in the end. Constance isn’t allowed to go arrest Milady, d’Artagnan lecturing her about the LAST time she helped and got stabbed. She definitely needs to nurture some other connections at the police station. That’s going to get annoying fast and she needs to have other ways to access scenes and arrests. It’s not key, though, Marguerite is exonerated. With both Milady and Rochefort in custody it’s just a matter of building cases, and that’s not her job. She goes through all their files on the case and removes any that Marguerite has marked as ‘not for the police’ before sending everything else through to the case-lead, which is sadly Marcheaux. She does send the same email to d’Artagnan, though. She sends a full set to Marguerite along with a detailed invoice. Then she’s done. The case is solved, her part in it is over, the culprits are caught. 

What is dramatic is what happens when she goes to the station to meet d’Artagnan after work (she’s mad about the arrest thing but that was few days ago and she also wants dinner, which he’s offered to pay for). She’s in time to see Porthos enter the foyer and Marcheaux come through some doors from further in. Constance raises her hand and opens her mouth to say hi but Porthos strides across the room, ignoring her, and cuts Marcheaux, coming down from the office, off. There are some quiet words and then Porthos, for everyone to see and hear, arrests Marcheaux. There’s an audible intake of breath from everyone around them. 

“You’re in so much shit, du Vallon,” Marcheaux sneers. 

“No, I’m not. I’ve gone to each of the men who’ve been protecting you here and they’re fine with this,” Porthos says. “You might have friends in high places, but you can’t begin to imagine the people I know. And while your friends are paid for their help mine give it for free, because they like me.”

Treville comes in with two uniforms and takes Marcheaux off Porthos’s hands. He has a few sharp words for Porthos, because Porthos has apparently been keeping secrets. 

“He was monitoring everything very carefully,” Porthos says. 

“We’re going to have problems with all our evidence,” Treville says. 

“No, I fixed a bunch of that, with Florian. I’ve also talked to CSI and we’ve done some damage control. We’re fine,” Porthos says .”And, here, this laptop has everything you need on it. The file is called ‘slughorn’, I’ve texted you the password.”

And that’s the end of that. Constance abandons d’Artagnan with a text and trails Porthos to the pub, cornering him at his table. She brings him the carton of grape juice and sits, straddling her chair. 

“What did Marcheaux do?” she asks. 

“Just covered everything up,” Porthos says. “Lost evidence, misdirected attention, played us. He helped frame Mrs Green but then fucked up the case when she’d been linked to Richelieu and Milady and the rest. He was the cop who tipped Rochefort off in Oxford all those years ago. Richelieu has always protected him, he’s an inside guy who refuses to get his hands dirty.”

“d’Artagnan was right,” Constance says. 

“Yeah,” Porthos says. 

“Are you in trouble?”

“Always,” Porthos says, with a grin. 

“Come on.”

“I’m in trouble, but nothing I can’t handle. I really have got some very useful friends. Treville, for one,” Porthos says. “I’m fine.”

“It’s actually over now, though, right?” Constance says. 

“Yeah, except for the court stuff and building cases against those three and-”

“But those are boring things that Athos and I ignore.”

“Then yeah, it’s over,” Porthos says. 

“Thanks for this one,” Constance says. “For the help, when you gave it. I respect your professionalism, when you didn’t.”

“Thank you. Are we done with the grilling? Only my boyfriend’s waiting at the bar,” Porthos says. 

She turns and catches Athos coming back from wherever he was out the back, a bottle of wine in one hand. She turns back to Porthos but he’s got up, taking the juice, and is going to join Athos. He gets a kiss on the cheek and his glasses removed. He laughs and Athos gives him the glasses back but he keeps them off, sitting on a stool and facing Athos where he leans against the bar, fiddling with Porthos’s glasses, telling him something. Constance sighs happily. And rings Adele. 

**

When they’re done with the wine, Athos and Porthos head upstairs to the flat. It’s good, Porthos decides, to be going with Athos. To have Athos undo his shirt and kiss him, and kiss his naked shoulder, and look up at him with those big eyes and slight smile. Everything is good.


End file.
